Palestinian Regime Abuses Human Rights, Group Says

As Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat moves toward declaring an independent state, a respected international human rights organization is accusing his regime of the systematic repression, torture and arbitrary imprisonment of those who criticize the government’s rule.

In a scathing report to be released today, the London-based Amnesty International said Arafat’s Palestinian Authority has detained dozens of Palestinian intellectuals, journalists, union activists and religious leaders simply because they challenged official policies or peace negotiations with Israel. They are routinely denied due process, never shown arrest warrants, not formally charged or tried, and sometimes beaten in jail.

“Since its establishment in 1994, the PA [Palestinian Authority] has progressively restricted the right to freedom of expression through a variety of means, including arrest and detention by various security forces,” according to the report, titled “Silencing Dissent.”

“Critics of the PA may find themselves invited to have a short meeting over a cup of coffee with one or other of the security services, only to emerge from detention days, weeks or even months later,” the report said.

Arafat also is guilty of shutting down newspapers, radio stations and research centers that criticize his rule, leading to a widespread practice of self-censorship by fearful Palestinians and crippling the democratic development of the fledgling state, Amnesty International said.

The rights organization documented the cases of 13 “prisoners of conscience” that illustrate the pattern of abuse.

One Islamist, Abdullah Shami, was arrested after he published an article critical of an Arafat Cabinet shuffle. He was held incommunicado for 22 days, detained in solitary confinement for more than a month and finally released without charges.

Abbas Mumani, a Palestinian photographer working for the British news agency Reuters, was arrested, interrogated about a videotape, whipped with cables and denied sleep, food and use of a toilet for long periods, the report said. He escaped by jumping out of the detention center’s third-floor window.

Abdel-Sattar Qassem, an academic at An Najah University in Nablus, was arrested after signing a petition that accused Arafat’s government of widespread corruption, then held long after a court ordered his release.

Palestinian officials did not comment immediately on the report.

But in a recent meeting with foreign reporters, Col. Jibril Rajoub, head of the main police force in the Palestinian-ruled West Bank, said people are arrested not because they criticize the government but because they break laws or are guilty of other infractions.

Repression by Arafat’s forces is considered less harsh than in other Arab countries. But many Palestinians have hoped that their new state would pattern itself more closely on Western democracies, with a fuller respect for human rights.

Amnesty International said that the Palestinian Authority has made a practice of refusing to respond to the organization’s complaints, or that it tries to justify detention on “vague grounds such as ‘security.’ ”

Under U.S.-brokered peace agreements with Israel, the Palestinians are required to stamp out incitement and other violence-mongering rhetoric. But Amnesty International said the Palestinian Authority has used that requirement as a pretext for blanket prohibitions on criticism.