Palestinian Condemns Arafat's Human Rights Record

Eid, an Arab resident of Jerusalem, is the founder and executive director of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, an independent non-governmental organisation established in December 1996. Then a senior fieldworker for an Israeli human rights group, B'tselem, Eid was kidnapped from his home a year ago by Arafat's personal security unit Force 17 after having criticised Arafat's human rights abuses (IRIS, 7 January 1996). Eid left B'tselem last summer after the group decided not to monitor human rights violations by the Palestinian Authority.

Eid described how, shortly after taking power, Arafat arrested several Palestinian human rights activists. Most human rights groups got the message, and one, Al-Haq, converted itself into a rehabilitation group for the handicapped. One prominent activist, Iyad Sarraj, was arrested and held for 17 days despite vocal international protest. Locals in Gaza commented that if Arafat could treat Sarraj that way, there was no hope for average Palestinians seized by Arafat's security forces. Eid said that Palestinians who had been arrested were threatened upon their release that if they spoke to human rights groups about their experiences they would be rearrested and tortured. The result is a general fear of criticising the PA in any way.

About 1000 political prisoners have been held in Arafat's jails for over 6 months without being charged. When their families ask why they are being held, they are told, "Go to Abu Amar [Arafat's nom de guerre] and ask him why." Similarly, in August 1996 an appeal was filed against the detention without charge of 10 students from Bir Zeit University. After deliberating for two months the Palestinian high court ordered the students' release. Arafat responded by dismissing the head judge; the students remain in detention.

Those arrested by the PA are routinely tortured, especially those held for civil offences such as theft or prostitution. These detainees are often accused of being Israeli collaborators and told that they must prove otherwise. However, members of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist groups -- many of whom were detained last March following a series of suicide bombings in Israel -- were generally not tortured and most were released without charge after several months.

Quoting PA Police Ministry statistics, Eid said that there are officially 80,000 Palestinian police officers stationed in the Palestinian-controlled areas, more than twice the number allowed under the Israel-Palestinian accords. He emphasised that this does not include the thousands of "preventive security" officers, plainclothes agents and intelligence agents. He questioned the need for such a large security force to police a population of only 2 million. Eid noted that thousands of these officers were convicted killers, who had served time in Israeli prisons for killing Palestinians suspected of helping Israel and were later released by Israel as part of the agreements with the PLO. He expressed shock that such people should now be serving as policemen. One such killer is now the chief investigator at a PA prison.

Bassem Eid called on European governments, who are funding the PA's budget, to impose sanctions on the PA in protest at its human rights abuses. European governments should earmark their donations for social projects, he suggested, rather than giving Arafat money to expand his security forces. He also called on the Israeli left to bring up human rights issues when meeting with Arafat, rather than just discussing ways to advance the peace process.

Leiah and Jason Elbaum

IRIS

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