Lord Hylton – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2015-11-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have made to the government of Israel following the Decision adopted by the IPU’s Governing Council meeting on 21 October concerning Palestinian parliamentarians, in particular about the health of those parliamentarians being detained, access for family visits, and grounds for early release.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

We remain concerned about Israel’s extensive use of administrative detention which, in accordance with international law, should not be used as routine practice, and should be a preventive rather than a punitive measure. We have not specifically raised the cases of detained Palestinian Legislative Council members. On 3 November officials from our Embassy in Tel Aviv raised the issue of administrative detention with Israeli officials from the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General.