Seven High Court judges on Tuesday rejected the request for an additional debate which was submitted by a group of Arab terrorists jailed in Israel against a decision not to let them receive academic studies from the Open University while in jail.
The terrorists claimed that they were being “discriminated” against as opposed to regular prisoners – despite the fact that jailed terrorists or “security prisoners” as they are known have been revealed in at least some cases to be receiving preferential treatment.
Their request was rejected by district courts, before finally reaching the High Court that rejected it as well.
In the High Court discussion it was ruled that certain rights that are not imbued rights can be negated only for security prisoners, and that such action is not discrimination since the jailed terrorists as a group acted with a goal of harming the state.
While the judges agreed to throw out the request of the specific prisoners who belonged to terrorist organizations, a disagreement was left open between them as to whether a comprehensive ban on academic studies for security prisoners stands within the parameters of the law.
Several judges opposed a comprehensive ban calling instead for an individual examination of each jailed terrorist, while others argued a comprehensive ban was legitimate and should be instated. No final decision on specific guidelines for policy was reached.
MK Miri Regev (Likud) warmly welcomed the decision, saying “security prisoners are in effect terrorists who acted against the state of Israel and its citizens.”
She noted that statistics raised in the Interior Committee during her time as chairperson showed that “the majority of security prisoners study the topic of genocide in the framework of academic studies in jail.”
The figures, which were released in late 2013, showed that in 2011 the most popular course among jailed terrorists was indeed “Genocide.”
“No sane country in the world would allow terrorists to study at the expense of the state and at the expense of the tax payer,” emphasized Regev. “The High Court made the right choice.”
