13-02-13 Black Hole prisons in Israel - Australian citizen, held secretly in Israel, committed suicide

Letter to the editor of Haaretz daily:

2013/2/13 JZ <123456xyz@gmail.com>

עורך נכבד:

 בתגובה למאמר בהארץ היום בעניין הנ"ל ברצוני להוסיף: דוח "סייג לזכויות האדם" לשנת 2013 לגבי זכויות האדם בישראל, ציין שקיים חשש ממשי של קיום בתי כלא מסוג "חור שחור" בישראל, בהם מוחזקים בני אדם בסודיות, וכמו כן קיומם של בתי דין שדה, שאת קיומם מסרב משרד המשפטים לאשר, הקשורים לעניין זה.  דוח זה של "סייג לזכויות האדם" נכלל בדוח המועצה לזכויות האדם, הסקירה התקופתית של מדינת ישראל (2013), פסקה 25, האומרת "חוסר יושרה בכתבים האלקטרוניים של בית המשפט העליון, בתי המשפט המחוזיים, ובתי הדין למוחזקי  משמורת בישראל".י

ייוסף צרניק

ירושלים

Dear Editor:
Regarding Haaretz report today, regarding suicide of an Australian secret prisoner in Israel, I would like to add the following:  The 2013 Human Rights Alert (NGO) submission, regarding Human Rights in Israel, noted that the evidence reasonably indicated that "Black Hole" prisons existed in Israel, where people were secretly held, and also that ad hock "field courts" existed in Israel, which the Ministry of Justice refused to admit, which were tightly related to this matter.
The Human Rights Alert submission was incorporated into the Human Rights Council report for the Universal Periodic Review of Israel (2013), paragraph 25, which says: "Lack of integrity in the electronic records of the Supreme Court, the district courts and the detainees courts in Israel".
Joseph Zernik
Jerusalem.

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Mystery of Australian prisoner’s suicide in Israeli jail prompts media gag order

12 FEBRUARY 2013

AN AUSTRALIAN man committed suicide in a high-security Israeli jail in 2010 after being held for months in great secrecy, Australia's ABC channel has said.

There was no official comment on the story in Israel.The unsourced ABC story named the man, known previously only as "prisoner x", as Ben Zygier. It added that it "understood" the 34-year-old from Melbourne had been previously recruited by the Israeli spy agency Mossad.

However, within hours of the report surfacing, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office summoned Israeli editors to ask them not to publish a story "that is very embarrassing to a certain government agency", Israel's Haaretz newspaper said.

"The emergency meeting was called following a broadcast outside Israel regarding the incident in question," Haaretz said, giving no further information.

Shortly afterwards, all reference to the Australian report vanished from Israeli news sites   including Haaretz itself.

Such a gag order is highly unusual in Israel, where state military censors normally allow local media to quote foreign sources on controversial incidents   such as an alleged attack on Syria last month by the Israeli airforce.

ABC said that Zygier's imprisonment was so secret that not even his guards knew his name. However, word got out at the time of a mysterious prisoner and human rights groups wrote to the state to demand more information.

"It is insupportable that, in a democratic country, authorities can arrest people in complete secrecy and disappear them from public view without the public even knowing such an arrest took place," the Association for Civil Rights in Israel wrote in June 2010.

When Israel's Ynet website wrote about the case that same month the story was quickly removed because of a gag order.

ABC said Zygier had moved to Israel 10 years before his death and changed his name to Ben Alon. It gave no reason for his imprisonment, speculating only that it would have had to concern espionage and sensitive state secrets.

Funeral notices from Australia show that Zygier's body was flown back to Melbourne at the end of December 2010 for burial.