'Israeli Arab security prisoners discriminated against'
By Gideon Alon, Thursday, March 16, 2000 Ha'aretz Knesset CorrespondentDuring a meeting of the Constitution, Law and Justice committee, Knesset members harshly criticized President Ezer Weizman for failing to reduce the prison sentences of Israeli Arab security prisoners, as he has for Jewish prisoners in similar cases.
Coalition chairman MK Ophir Pines (One Israel), who initiated the discussion, accused the president of exercising double standards in granting clemency to prisoners.
A list of 29 Arab Israeli security prisoners was brought up at the meeting. Of the list, 22 had received life sentences after being convicted of murder or attempted murder. None of the Arab Israeli prisoners received a commutation of their sentences, although some of them were sentenced for years.
Pines said that he initiated the discussion after he heard complaints from prisoners about discrimination against Israeli Arab security prisoners. Pines mentioned the case of Yoram Skolnik, who is expected to be released next month after completing only seven years of the life term he was sentenced for murdering a Palestinian prisoner. President Weizman twice commuted his sentence.
Pines proposed a new bill, in which a prisoner whose sentence is commuted by the president will not be eligible to receive further clemency from the parole board. He said he hopes that the bill will prevent the recurrence of cases like Skolnik's.
Attorney Varda Omansky, who serves as Weizman's legal adviser, said that the president has not yet commuted the sentences of the Israeli Arab security prisoners because the defense minister has not yet given an opinion on the matter. However, Ami Palmor, the director of the Department of Clemencies at the Justice Ministry, said that Minister Yossi Beilin has asked Prime Minister Barak to commute the sentences of these security prisoners.
The legal adviser to the Prison Authority, attorney Haim Shmuelevitz, said that Public Security Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami has asked to examine the conditions of security prisoners who are Israeli citizens.
At the end of the meeting the committee, taking advantage of the absence of most of its right-wing members, decried the discrimination against Israeli Arab security prisoners and said it intends to closely follow developments in the cases of those prisoners.
