Turkish rights NGO demands Palestinian child's release

By Sorwar Alam

ANKARA

A Turkish rights group is demanding the immediate release of Fawzi al-Juneidi, a 16-year-old Palestinian child detained last week by the Israeli authorities.

“We demand al-Juneidi’s immediate release,” the Human Rights and Justice Movement (IHAK), an Istanbul-based NGO, said in a Tuesday press release.

Last Thursday, al-Juneidi was repeatedly beaten, kicked and dragged on the ground by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank city of Hebron (Al-Khalil).

He was later blindfolded before being whisked off to Israel’s Ofer Prison.

Al-Juneidi is the eldest child in a family of seven. His mother suffers from cancer and entertains little hope of recovery, while his father is bedridden.

In its statement, IHAK called on all countries party to the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of the Child, along with international rights organizations, “to ensure the release of Fawzi al-Juneidi and every other Palestinian child arrested by Israel”.

It went on to point out that Israel had detained 2,634 Palestinian children in 2015; 887 in 2016; and 700 so far this year.

Detained children, IHAK asserted, were frequently subject to “various forms of torture and cruel treatment, such as blindfolding and physical violence in the form of handcuffing, beating, starving, swearing and insults”.

Al-Juneidi’s arrest comes at a time when the occupied Palestinian territories are witnessing protests against last week’s decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.