Baroness Tonge – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Tonge on 2015-12-07.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anelay of St Johns on 17 November (HL3625), what representations they are making to the government of Israel regarding the identification of the ages of Palestinian children prior to their arrest and detention.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
Officials from our Embassy in Tel Aviv raised this issue with the Israeli Ministry of Justice (MoJ) when they met on 3 November and were informed that a small number of children under 12 had been detained. The Israeli MoJ stated that once their age was established, the minors were released. They also told officials that if identification was not available, parents of the individuals were contacted via the Palestinian District Coordination Office. Since the publication of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office-funded independent report on Children in Military Custody in June 2012, there has been some progress on the issue of children held in military detention in Israel. This includes a pilot to use summons instead of night-time arrests, changes to standard operating procedures on methods of restraint, and steps to reduce the amount of time a child can be detained before seeing a judge. While we welcome improvements, we continue to push for the full implementation of changes and to encourage further changes in practice.
