Human Rights Group Accuses Israel of Routine Torture Against Palestinians, Nando Times (from Associated Press), November 11, 2001 "Israeli authorities torture Palestinian detainees regularly - inflicting punishments such as sleep deprivation, shackling in painful positions for prolonged periods and beatings - despite a 1999 Supreme Court ban on the practice, three local and international human rights groups said in a report Sunday. The document cited affidavits from detainees, including a 16-year-old who said he was soaked in freezing water, made to carry a heavy wooden beam while manacled and then beaten ... The joint document by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, or PCATI, the Palestinian rights group LAW and the Swiss-based World Organization Against Torture contends that the September 1999 Supreme Court ruling has been regularly flouted, particularly since the outbreak of fighting between Israeli and the Palestinians in September 2000. 'Torture and other forms of ill-treatment are still widely used against Palestinian detainees, both in GSS (General Security Service) interrogation facilities and by members of the Israeli army and police,' it says. The GSS is also known by its Hebrew acronym, Shin Bet. The report cites nine affidavits by Arab detainees saying they were interrogated with methods expressly forbidden under the 1999 ruling or by existing Israeli or international law."