Rights Activist Held by Palestinians Freed

In what appears to be a continuing crackdown on free speech, Yasser Arafat’s police detained a prominent Palestinian civil rights activist for 24 hours before releasing him, Israeli radio reported today.

Bassam Eid, a senior fieldworker for the B’Tselem human rights center who has been critical of the Palestinian Authority’s record on free speech and other civil rights, told Israeli radio he was freed from a Palestinian police office in the West Bank city of Ramallah after meeting with an aide to Arafat.

Eid said he didn’t know which Palestinian police force had held him.

“I wasn’t in jail. I sat in the office. I received all I requested. I wasn’t interrogated at all. . . . Everyone who came into the office was simply surprised to see me there and asked me what I was doing,” Eid said. “I said, ‘In truth, I don’t know.’ ”

Eid said he was told the detention was “a misunderstanding,” and was released to Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli Arab advisor to Arafat.

Eid’s detention comes on the heels of the arrest of Palestinian newspaper editor Maher Alami, who was held for six days after he refused to publish a flattering Christmas story on Arafat on the front page of Al Quds newspaper. Alami was released last week.

In both cases, police initially denied they were holding the men.

The detention and daylong disappearance of Eid drew a barrage of condemnation from Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Eid, 38, carries an Israeli identity card that shows he is a resident of East Jerusalem, but he is not a citizen of Israel, according to B’Tselem.

“B’Tselem views the detention of Eid as a serious breach of the freedom of activity of a human rights organization,” Eitan Felner, deputy director of the group, said Wednesday.

B’Tselem is an Israeli human rights group that earned a reputation for independence over the years in criticizing Israeli abuses of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. More recently, the group has begun to denounce Palestinian police abuses in the West Bank.

Arafat has taken control of the major Arab cities and most villages in the West Bank in the last couple of months, under the peace agreement he signed with Yitzhak Rabin before the Israeli prime minister was assassinated.

Israeli officials charged that taking Eid into custody in Israeli-controlled East Jerusalem violated the peace accord, which prohibits Palestinian police from operating in Israeli territory.

“Any activity by Palestinian police inside Israel is against the law,” said Israeli police spokesman Eric Bar-Chen. “I don’t care if Eid is from Israel, Taiwan or Timbuktu.”

Eid, who has worked for B’Tselem since its founding in 1989, was one of the principal authors of a B’Tselem report in August that accused the Preventive Security Service, a branch of the Palestinian Authority’s police force, of “gross violations of human rights” in the West Bank, including illegal detentions and torture.

Eid’s arrest may have been prompted by an interview he gave to Palestinian radio two days ago in which he criticized the Palestinian Authority’s preparation for the first Palestinian elections on Jan. 20 for an 88-member ruling council and executive leader. He also criticized the Palestinian media for failing to give adequate exposure to opposition candidates.