The Florence Conference
 

The Speech of the Director of Khiam Rehabilitation Center, Mr. Mohammed Safa, in Florence Conference, Italy
19-22/12/2003

Dear Friends,

First I would like to thank the organizers of this conference for inviting us to present the issue of the Lebanese hostages in the Israeli prisons and out experience in defending the detainees and rehabilitating the ex-detainees of Khiam prison and the other torture centers.

The Israeli invasion for Lebanon in 1978, its occupation for the South of Lebanon, and the establishment of the prisons on its lands lead to the detention of thousands of Lebanese citizens in the Israeli prisons.

The number os the Lebanese and Palestinian citizens that Israel detained in Ansar, Khiam, Tel Al-Nahhas and other prisons since 1978 till 2000 is about 15,000 prisoners out of which 100 died as a result of severe torture and more than 1000 had physical and mental hindrances.

The ages of the detainees range between 14 and 75 years, detained illegally and in complete isolation without even knowing their accusation or having the chance of hiring an attorney.

Khiam Detention Camp was not opened for the International Committee of Red Cross from 1985 till 1995, and during that period the following means of torture were highly used:

1. Beating by cudgels on the different parts of the body, mainly the head.
2. Electric shocks especially on the reproductive organs and fingers.
3. Starvation (depriving of food and water).
4. Strangulation (by dropping gas bombs within the detainees).
5. Scalding by cigarettes.
6. Hanging.
7. Sexual torture.
8. Deformation (pulling the nails, uprooting the hair and distorting the teeth).
9. Amputation.
10. Psychological torture; threatening of raping the sister, mother, daughter or wife or killing family members, watching the torture practiced on others, demolishing of houses, degrading… etc.

The following sums up the sequences of torture, physically, mentally and socially, according to the doctors’ reports:

• Sight weakness.
• Nervous tension.
• Arteriosclerosis.
• Impotency.
• Problems on the reproductive organs.
• Fractions in the nose bones and bleeding in the inner ear.
• Permanent headaches.
• Rheumatism and disc.
• Heart failure.
• Loss of concentration.
• Stomach illnesses, mainly ulcer.
• Chest diseases
• Cancer.
• Chronic depression.
• Insomnia.
• Isolation.
• Fear and desperation.

Israel didn’t content with the inhumane methods of torture used against the Lebanese citizens that violates Geneva Convention, but it persisted by constraining 16 of those citizens as hostages in its prisons despite its complete withdrawal from Southern Lebanon in May 2000, in addition to hundreds of missing people and corpses that Israel refuses to uncover their places. Such an act is a big violation for the International law and crime against humanity.

From another side, Israel has left in the Lebanese lands around 500,000 mines that cause the death of tens of citizens and farmers from to day and this paralyze the socio-economic life cycle in south.

Dear Friends,

This only a part of Israeli inhumane practices against the Lebanese citizens, and this motivated The Follow-up Committee for the Support of Lebanese Detainees in Israeli Prisons to establish Khiam Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture in order to offer medical, psychological and social support for the ex-detainees and their families. We have also opened The House of Lebanese Detainee in South, which forms an opposite image of torture and embraces the ex-detainees and their children through a set of cultural, medical, and social activities aiming at reintegrating them in society.

Of course, such simple efforts are accompanied with the compensations that the government is presenting to the ex-detainees and with some support form other social institutions. However, all these offerings are partial don’t constitute a complete project that can allow a total reintegration for the ex-detainees and their families.

The ex-detainees, whether in Lebanon or in your countries, should receive the total care and support on the medical, mental and social levels. And for this aim specialized centers should be established along with an international fund for the detainees and their families. In addition, an international solidarity day should be defined in this course.

The ex-detainees need moral support so that they feel that their sacrifices didn’t go in vain because oblivion is harder for them than detention and torture.

In order for the rehabilitation operation to complete it should be accompanied with economic support and moral compensation, which includes taking legal action against the perpetrators who caused them physical and psychological pain.

From Florence, we call up on for an international campaign that fights the phenomenon of escaping torture and works for bringing into trial the perpetrators who commit violations against the political prisoners in the entire world.

Dear Friends,

I’ve come here from the South of Lebanon, to remind you of the Lebanese hostages that Israel is keeping and to ask you to be united in solidarity with them and I call the international community to raise their issue in order to get them released.

I’ve presented to you the suffering of the ex-detainees and our recent experience in rehabilitation but I also would like to remind of the 7000 Palestinian prisoners who are imprisoned under the auspices of the world’s silence carelessness.

I would like to remind you of the tragedy of the Palestinian population who are subjected to the most aggressive extermination war by Sharon, the terrorist and the rulers of Tel Aviv.

I would like to remind you of the tragedy of the Iraqi people which is not ended by the arrest of their former president, the dictator Saddam Hussein. Their tragedy will only end only with the withdrawal of the allied colonial forces, which have violated the sovereignty and independence of Iraq in a terroristic unfair war lead by USA.

I would like to remind you of the Lebanese struggler. George Ibrahim Abdullah, who is secluded unfairly in the French prisons. 

I would like to remind you of Samar Al-Alami and Jawad Al-Botma who are secluded in the British prisons.

I would like to remind you of the political and free opinion prisoners in the Arabian jails.

I would like to remind you of all the detainees and the victims of arbitrary detention in the Israeli and Arabian prisons and I declare our complete solidarity with the strugglers and political prisoners in your countries to find the truth and to uncover the destiny of the missing in the prisons of the dictatorial regimes.

From the South of Lebanon, I salute the mothers of the detainees and missing. I salute the detainees and missing and all the martyrs and strugglers.

The detainees who struggled for freedom, democracy and justice have the same image in our minds, whether they are from Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Argentina, Palestine or any other country.

And the perpetrators and tyrants have the same image in our minds, whether they are Arabs, Israelis, Americans, Turkish or from any other nationality.

We raise our voices more and more, we struggle more and more for one free, democratic, just and peaceful life. And may this conference be a special event to coordinate our struggle in the course of defending the detainees and supporting their families.