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Ear to the Ground

Palestinian Security Forces Accused of Torture

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Posted on Jul 29, 2008

Fighting between rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas has led to human rights abuses in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch. A Palestinian human rights organization recently drew similar conclusions. Both sides have admitted to at least some of the findings of the report.


Washington Post:

Dmitri Diliani, a Fatah spokesman in Jerusalem, said there were “definitely abuses of human rights and we are committed to fixing them.” But he added: “The violations in the West Bank stem from the fact that Israel has not permitted our security forces to train and has destroyed our police stations and jails. In Gaza, they stem from a military coup and a refusal to accept the other. It is a mistake to compare these two situations.”

In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told the Associated Press that “mistakes” had been made by Hamas forces and that violators were being punished.

Human Rights Watch said that over the past year, Fatah-run security forces in the West Bank have arrested hundreds of Hamas members and supporters, detaining many without warrants and torturing prisoners under interrogation. The most common form of torture was forcing detainees to hold stress positions for prolonged periods, Human Rights Watch said.

The report found that Hamas forces in Gaza committed many of the same abuses and that three detainees died in custody in Gaza, apparently from torture.

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By Susan J Hass, July 30, 2008 at 5:57 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

txrebel… I guess I couldn’t have expected a sane response from someone who can’t even spell Israel correctly… 
I guess ignorance is bliss, pal…

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By Robert, July 30, 2008 at 4:19 pm #

July 29, 2008
Letting AP in on the Secret
Israeli Strip Searches

By ALISON WEIR

“On June 26th a young Palestinian photojournalist named Mohammed Omer was returning home from a triumphant European tour.

In London he had been awarded the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for journalism – the youngest recipient ever and one of the few non-Britons ever to receive the prestigious prize.

In Greece he had been given the 2008 journalism award for courage by the Union of Greek Journalists and had been invited to speak before the Greek parliament.

In Britain, the Netherlands, Greece, and Sweden he had met with Parliament Members and been interviewed on major radio and TV stations.

In the US several years before, he had been named the first recipient of the New America Media’s Best Youth Voice award.

In an Israeli border facility he was violently strip-searched at gunpoint, forced to do a grotesque sort of dance while completely naked, assaulted, taunted about his awards and his ethnicity, and finally, when Israeli officials feared he might have been fatally injured, taken by ambulance to a Palestinian hospital; if he died, it would not be while in Israeli custody.

As readers may have already guessed, Israel was not part of Omer’s speaking tour.

AP, in its over 60 reports from the region in the following week never mentioned any of this.

The reason Omer was even in ‘Israel’ (actually, an “immigration terminal” controlled by Israel on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank) is a simple one: He was simply trying to go from Jordan to his home in the Gaza Strip. Gaza is basically a large concentration camp to which Israel holds the keys. It is extremely difficult for Palestinians to get out. It is just as difficult to get back in.

Despite Omer’s journalism credentials (Gaza correspondent for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and IPS, stringer for AFP, occasionally appears on BBC, etc.) and despite being invited to receive an international award, Omer was only able to exit Gaza through the considerable efforts of Dutch diplomats.

When the 24-year-old journalist tried to return to Gaza, it again required intercession by the Dutch Embassy. After being forced by Israel to wait in Jordan for five days (and therefore missing his brother’s wedding), Omer finally received word that he would be allowed to go home.

However, when he arrived at the Israeli immigration terminal, an Israel official told him that there was no entry permit for him in the computer and he was told to wait. Three hours later an official came out and took Omer’s cell phone away from him. While Omer’s Dutch Embassy escort waited outside, unaware of what was going on, Omer’s ordeal began.

  “He then asked me to leave my belongings and follow him. I recognized we were entering the Shin Bet [Israeli internal security service] offices at Allenby. Upon entering, he motioned for me to sit in a chair within a closed corridor…

  “After what seemed to be one hour and thirty minutes, both doors at the end of the corridor opened. I watched as one of the Palestinian passengers exited securing his belt to his trousers. A second man followed behind and was struggling to put on his T-shirt. Immediately I realized I was not in a good place. The rooms from which they exited must be used for strip searching…”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Click On URL for the rest of the story:


http://www.counterpunch.org/weir07292008.html

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By txrebel, July 30, 2008 at 2:18 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

This is great. Let those bastards kill off each other.  There will less that Isreal and/or the U.S. will have fight later.

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By Susan J Hass, July 30, 2008 at 12:25 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

It is high time to start focusing on the real cause of the violence in the occupied territories… Israeli oppression of the Arab population. Ethnic cleansing began in 1948 and is still going on. If Israel returned to pre-1967 borders and removed ALL illegal settlements, it would be a good start to a sustainable peace. (And NO, I am not an Arab. I am a WASP, who sees the injustice going on, and prays it will end soon).

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