Baroness Tonge – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Tonge on 2016-01-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the level of improvement in the conditions of children in prisons in Israel since the publication in 2012 of the report by British lawyers Children in Military Custody.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) progress report of October 2013 noted that Israel has taken some positive steps towards addressing the recommendations in the 2012 report by updating the existing Standard Operating Procedures and policies in relation to the arrest of minors. These updates included changing the policy on methods of restraint and the use of blindfolds. Israel also increased the age of majority for Palestinian children. The Israeli military committed to conducting a pilot of using written summons instead of night-time arrests.

We welcome the steps taken to date, but we continue to call for further measures, including the mandatory use of audio-visual recording of interrogations, investigation into continued reports of single-hand ties being used, and an end to solitary confinement for children.

We are also funding a follow up mission by the British lawyers who conducted the report in February.