Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR UK) emphasised that the security services of the Palestinian Authority (PA) are waging systematic repressive campaigns against activists and human rights defenders in the West Bank to stop any movement rejecting the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. PA security services recently arrested many activists and journalists in a flagrant violation of the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the right to demonstrate.
Upon instructions from the US administration, the PA security services strengthened their security cooperation with the occupation government after October 7. They suppressed demonstrations denouncing the genocide in the Gaza Strip and arrested activists, while leaving settler gangs and the occupation forces to commit the most heinous crimes against citizens in the West Bank.
A significant increase in arbitrary arrests by the PA security services against activists was witnessed in the recent weeks after many demonstrations condemning the occupation’s brutal operations and military raids on the camps and cities of the West Bank took place.
33 citizens were arrested in the first 12 days of October, some of whom were released while the rest are still in detention, deprived of their most basic rights, and subjected to various forms of torture and humiliation.
The PA security services have increased their restrictions on the work of journalists who cover the occupation’s crimes in the camps and cities of the West Bank.
Al Jazeera correspondent Laith Jaar was beaten and threatened with death by a security officer and got arrested while filing a complaint against this officer and was released hours later.
The PA security services also arrested journalist Mohammed Turkman while covering news at the Palestine Medical Complex last Monday, and he was later released. On the same day, they also arrested activist and political opponent Omar Assaf during a protest in Ramallah.
The detainees this month included the freed prisoner Amer Abu Zaarour, who was arrested from his workplace on Asira Street in Nablus, student Mohammed Ziad Al-Kilani, freed prisoner Bashar Khuwaira from Nablus, freed prisoner Mohammed Abu Adnan from Tubas, and professor Wael Shalabi, who was arrested after his shop was raided in Attil, Tulkarm.
The arrests continued since last September, when the PA arrested about 37 people, including students, freed prisoners, activists, and journalists. They are reportedly being subjected to a degrading treatment, and psychological and physical torture during informal interrogations.
The Palestinian Authority is playing an authoritarian role which completely defies its purpose of existence. Instead of protecting the rights of Palestinians, it has become a serious threat to public freedoms and undermines the legitimate right to struggle against the Israeli occupation.
AOHR UK held President Mahmoud Abbas fully responsible for the suppression and arrest of journalists and activists by the Palestinian security services, especially at this critical time when the Palestinian people need to combine all efforts to stop the endless crimes of the occupation against them in all Palestinian territories.
