26 Arbitrary detention11constitutes one of the most worrying indicators of the deterioration of human rights and pubic freedoms in Palestine. The Government, however, denies that the security agencies carry out arbitrary detention based on political affiliation and stresses that the sole driving force for detention is security reasons. The fait accompli presents the patterns of violations concomitant with detention without substantial accusation and prosecution of detainees before military courts and in contravention of the right to due process. These patterns also include denying detainees the right to visitation and the right to communicate with their lawyers, in addition to delaying implementation, if at all, of court rulings. The visits ICHR carried out to the detention centers and prisons, and the complaints filed during 2010, show that the overwhelming majority of the persons detained by the security agencies in the West Bank are affiliates of the Hamas movement, and they also show the absence of the active role of the monitoring bodies, especially that of the Public Prosecution. 2. Torture and Ill‐treatment ICHR received 161 complaints which contained allegations of torture and ill‐ treatment in 2010. The visits it made to the prisons and detention centers and the complaints filed reveal that some detainees were subjected to ill‐ treatment and other patterns of torture in these centers. These patterns of torture include painful standing for long hours (Shabh), beating, deprivation of sleep, punching and psychological pressure12. 11 According to the magazine “Facts” (Waqaei’), and relating to the United Nations’ team concerned with arbitrary detention, detention is arbitrary if: a) it has no legal basis; b) it is conducted due to exercising the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenants on Religious and Political Rights, such as the right to equality before law, freedom of thought and opinion, establishment of peaceful associations and the right to participate in public affairs, access to public office and the right to travel; c) international standards of a fair trial are violated. 12 Torture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture is: any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official