הוועד הציבורי נגד עינויים בישראל

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) appealed to the Minister of Justice demanding that he oppose a law proposal to permanently anchor in law the exemption given to the police from the obligation to document investigations of security offenses by audio and visual means.

The Criminal Procedures Law (Interrogation of Suspects) obliges the police to visually document the investigations of suspects in offenses which carry a minimum prison sentence of 10 years or more.  This obligation is mean to ensure appropriate scrutiny of the way investigations of serious offenses are conducted and to prevent the collection of false confessions through illegal means of interrogation.

The above law does not apply to interrogations by the GSS. This situation is unacceptable, and the Minister of Internal Security ought to exercise his authority in order to also apply this law to GSS interrogations.

It is highly important to document police investigations by visual means in order to ensure that evidence brought before the courts was gotten through legal means and not by ill treatment or torture.