العربية
HE
العربية
HE
On May 24, 2023, HaMoked submitted to the High Court of Justice (HCJ) a petition to revoke the February 2023 order of the Minister of Public Security to drastically limit access to showers of prisoners classified as security prisoners, and to stop its implementation by the Israel Prison Service (IPS). HaMoked clarified that thus far, the wrongful instruction has been partially implemented in Nafha prison, in two blocks housing some 200 Palestinian inmates, including the three on whose behalf the petition was filed.
Before the order was issued, the IPS followed its regulations so as to allow all prisoners access to the showers throughout the day. In early February 2023, following an escalation in the general security situation, the Minister of Public Security instructed the IPS to restrict security prisoners’ shower time to just four minutes a day for each prisoner. The IPS began implementation at Nafha prison, in the blocks where it is technically possible to shut off water supply only to the showers. It should be noted that these are blocks that were built specially in order to implement the High Court judgment in HCJ 1892/14, which ordered to reduce the extreme overcrowding in IPS facilities. The implementation of the Minister’s order resulted in extreme overcrowding in the blocks’ showering area, as some 200 prisoners had to share just one hour of running water in the showers each day. Only after prisoners threatened to go on a hunger strike, did the IPS agree to somewhat expand the showering time, but still without making it possible for all prisoners to shower daily, as was the case before.
In the petition, HaMoked argued that the drastically limited access to showers constituted prohibited collective punishment. HaMoked asserted that the right to adequate access to a shower constituted an international minimum standard which must be afforded to inmates. HaMoked also stressed that the Israeli courts had repeatedly ruled that adequate prison conditions must be provided to all inmates, regardless of their offences, and that regular access to the showers must be ensured in order to maintain proper hygiene and to uphold human dignity.
HaMoked argued that the current limitation was also an unreasonable and disproportionate violation of prisoners’ rights to freedom of religion and to privacy. HaMoked added that this was prohibited discrimination targeting some 4,500 Palestinian “security” prisoners, and effectively harming some 200 of them. HaMoked added that the denial of the possibility to a daily shower was contrary to the prison regulations regarding the importance of maintaining adequate sanitary conditions in prison and prisoners’ personal hygiene, not least by enabling daily hot showers for each prisoner. HaMoked clarified that this could lead to a rise in morbidity among the prisoner population, especially of skin diseases, and more so given the summer heat and the absence of air-conditioning in the blocks.
* On January 2, 2024, HaMoked withdrew the petition on the Court’s advice, after the Court clarified during the hearing that it considered “the policy on this matter has been decided” in an earlier high court judgment issued November 2023. In that judgment, the HCJ summarily dismissed the petition filed by HaMoked and other human rights organizations against the violation of basic rights and minimal living conditions of Palestinian “security prisoners”. In recommending the petition’s withdrawal, the HCJ cited section 35 of the said judgment, in which the Court accepted – without any discussion – the State’s claim that inmates received daily access to hot water showers “for at least one hour every day”, and that the restriction of access to the showers as compared to the past was necessary for security reasons and was within the bounds of the law.
The Court noted that the petitioners could file petitions on behalf of individual prisoners in case of problems with the implementation of the policy.
