onsdag 7 februari 2018

Varför är det bara minderåriga som Israel arresterar som väcker debatt?

Varför debatterar parlamentet i Strobritannien de minderåriga palestinierna som fängslats av Israel frågar Jennifer Gerber i en bloggtext på TOI.
Parlamentet diskuterar nämligen inga andra staters behandling av unga brottslingar.
Det finns en del intressanta siffror i texten.

The UK pays disproportionate attention to Palestinian child prisoners
Today, Britain’s parliament will debate the issue of Palestinian child prisoners. There is always something disturbing and upsetting when juveniles end up in the criminal justice system — wherever it occurs in the world.

... This would not necessarily be a problem were it not for the fact that, during this period, the House of Commons has not seen fit to expend time debating the issue of juvenile offenders with specific reference to any other country in the world.

... However, the House of Commons has shown scant interest either in the fate of the approximately 60,000 children locked up in the United States’ juvenile detention facilities. Among their number in 2010 were an estimated 6,000 juveniles imprisoned for offences such as truancy, underage drinking, and running away from home.

... And, while casting its moral gaze around the world, the House of Commons has also not specifically debated Britain’s own record on arresting and locking up children over the past two years.

It might make an interesting topic for the Knesset to examine at some point. After all, adjusted for population, 5.5 times more minors were arrested in England and Wales in the year to March 2016 than in the West Bank by Israel.

There are a number of other issues the Israeli parliament might want to explore: why, for instance, England and Wales choose to criminalize children from the age of 10 (the age of criminal responsibility is 12 in Israel and the West Bank) or the allegations that British prisons are holding child inmates in solitary confinement in a potential breach of the UN Convention Against Torture and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

... There are, as Human Rights Watch reported in 2016, an estimated 1 million children in prison around the world.

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