[Source: Defense for Children International Palestine, DCIP to join advocacy days on ill-treatment of Palestinian child detainees]

Ramallah, May 29, 2015 - Defense for Children International Palestine will participate in three days of advocacy in Washington beginning on June 1 highlighting the systematic and widespread ill-treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli military detention.

On June 1, at noon, an interfaith vigil marking the International Day for the Protection of the Child kicks off the events. A congressional briefing sponsored by U.S. Representative Keith Ellison at the Capitol Hill Visitor Center on June 2 will highlight the widespread and systematic ill-treatment of Palestinian children by Israeli forces in the Israeli military detention system. 

Among those speaking at the briefing will be Tariq Abu Khdeir, a Palestinian American teenager who was beaten unconscious by Israeli police before being arrested without charge last summer. Representative Ellison will give opening remarks, and Brad Parker of Defense for Children International Palestine, Rabbi Brant Rosen of American Friends Service Committee, and Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch will also speak.

Israel is the only country in the world that automatically prosecutes children in military courts that lack basic and fundamental fair trial guarantees. Since 2000, at least 8,000 Palestinian children have been arrested and prosecuted in an Israeli military detention system notorious for the systematic ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children.

These events are organized by Defense for Children International - Palestine, American Friends Service Committee, and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.