On 3 March 2017, Imad Abou Rizk was released from the premises of Palestinian Authority’s Military Intelligence prison in Aqabat Jaber, Jericho, after four months of arbitrary detention. On 6 February 2017, Alkarama submitted his case to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), asking the UN experts to call upon the Palestinian authorities to release him.
On 6 November 2016, Abou Rizk, a 44-year-old sergeant in the Palestinian General Intelligence, was summoned to the investigation office of the General Intelligence in Ramallah, and was immediately arrested. Brought to the Military Intelligence prison in Aqabat Jaber, near Jericho, he was severely tortured while interrogated. He was detained incommunicado for a week before he was allowed to call his wife for the first time. On 10 January 2017, to protest against his conditions of detention, Rizk started a hunger strike. In retaliation, the authorities denied him the right to contact his wife and eventually kept his place of detention concealed for more than two weeks.
On 3 March 2017, Abou Rizk was finally released from the premises of the Palestinian Authority’s Military Intelligence prison in Aqabat Jaber, Jericho. As his health had been deteriorating, Rizk had been hospitalised in Jericho hospital several times and is currently in Ramallah hospital. He has not been referred to a court of law so far.
“We are relieved that Abou Rizk was finally set free,” comments Inès Osman, Regional Legal Officer responsible for Palestine at Alkarama. “Considering the acts of torture he was subjected to, though, the Palestinian authorities have a legal obligation to promptly open a thorough and impartial investigation into the allegations he raised and ensure that his rights to redress and compensation for the arbitrary detention he was subjected to be enforced.”
For more information or an interview, please contact media@alkarama.org (Dir: +41 22 734 1008).