[JURIST] A spokesman for Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council has said that the country's recently-enacted amnesty law [JURIST report] has resulted in charges being dropped against over 75,000 people with some 20,000 others being ordered freed from detention, according to Reuters Sunday. It was not clear how many prisoners have actually been freed. Abdulsatar al-Bayrkdar indicated that approximately 44,900 persons no longer facing charges had at one time been arrested but were now free on bail. Some 26,000 applications for amnesty have been rejected, however. Reuters has more. The latest figures are up from those reported in May [VOI report], when the spokesman was quoted by Voices of Iraq (VOI) as saying that charges had been dropped under amnesty against 24,472 people out on bail and 13,469 wanted but not yet arrested; the same spokesman said at the time that 11.476 detainees had been released along with 5,636 convicted prisoners.

The Iraqi legislature passed the General Amnesty Law [text, in English] in February as part of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's effort to draw disaffected Sunnis into the national reconciliation and reconstruction process. In May Iraq's Council of Ministers amended the law [JURIST report] to exclude prisoners who had committed certain types of serious crimes, including terrorist activities against the state. The pre-amendment amnesty law authorized the release of any prisoner who had not appeared before a judge within six years of the date of their detention.

[JURIST] Israeli soldiers regularly beat and abuse Palestinian detainees even after they have been arrested and no longer pose a threat, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) alleged in a report [press release; PDF text, in Hebrew] published Sunday. The group based its finding on testimony it obtained from some 90 detainees covering the period June 2006 and October 2007:

Abuse occurs at various junctions - immediately following arrest, in the vehicle transporting the detainees, and during the time they are held in IDF military camps prior to their transfer to interrogation and detention facilities. At times abusive practices involve dogs that are employed by the military forces during arrest operations and transported in vehicles along with Palestinian detainees. On certain occasions, the ill treatment of Palestinian detainees is highly violent resulting in serious injury. At other times, abuse manifests itself in a routine of beating, degradation and additional abuse. Minors, who must be granted special protection under both Israeli and International Law, are also victims of abuse. The soldiers who carry out arrests do not treat minors with special care and at times – as revealed by various testimonies – exploit their weakness.