The first three years of Palestinian self-rule have been characterized by widespread arbitrary and abusive conduct by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its mushrooming security agencies, according to Human Rights under the Palestinian Authority, released today by Human Rights Watch/Middle East. Hundreds of arbitrary detentions violated defendants' most elemental due-process rights. Detainees who were interrogated were commonly tortured, and the few who were brought to court were denied a fair trial
Physical abuse caused or contributed to many of the fourteen deaths that have occurred in custody since 1994. The PA has also threatened and arrested journalists, human rights activists, and other critics, encouraging self-censorship and creating a climate of fear and intimidation.
Human Rights Watch criticizes Israel and the U.S. for pressuring the PA to crack down on anti-Israel violence while showing little or no concern for the methods used. Executive director Kenneth Roth said, "On her trip to the region, Secretary of State Madeline Albright demanded a crackdown on terrorism by the PA. We have no quarrel with that. But given the PA's dismal record of arbitrary arrests, jailing of critics, and the absence of a functioning, independent judiciary, Washington's failure to publicly urge respect for human rights when combating anti-Israeli violence amounts to encouragement to resort once again to these abusive methods. This is a myopic approach to the peace process."
Roth also noted that in August, the U.S. announced it would assign a Central Intelligence Agency officer to attend regularly the security talks between Israel and the PA. By involving itself in this fashion, Roth said, "the U.S. assumes a heightened responsibility to use its influence to ensure that security be pursued, both by the PA and by Israel, in a manner that does not trample on human rights."
While the abusive record of the PA may be due in part to shortfalls in resources, training and experience, and to outside pressure to crack down on militant movements, the report stresses that these factors cannot justify or fully explain the PA's disregard for the rule of law and intolerance of peaceful opposition and dissent. The pattern of abusive conduct goes well beyond cases involving suspected Islamist militants, and displays a pervasive failure of political will by the PA's top leadership to make human rights protection a priority.
Torture by the Palestinian security forces has become routine in cases where detainees are interrogated, according to Human Rights Watch. Methods include some of those routinely practiced by Israeli interrogators, such as prolonged and painful body positioning, but also beatings with fists, clubs and rifle butts. Abusers have been held accountable for their acts only in rare cases where the death or injury of the victim has caused an outcry among Palestinians and from other governments. But the trials in these cases were so brief and disrespectful of fair-trial guarantees that they seemed more a concession to public pressure than an effort to see that justice is served. The report details what is known about the fourteen cases of death in PA custody.
While the PA's repressive tendencies fall well short of stamping out all dissent or critical voices, the pattern of intimidation, arrests, and physical mistreatment documented in the 81-page report has created a climate of fear among Palestinians. Those who have been arbitrarily arrested include prominent journalists and rights activists, and leaders of a West Bank teachers' strike. In one recent case, a university professor has been in detention since early July after asking students to write an essay on, among other things, corruption in the PA.
In this atmosphere, the Palestinian Legislative Council has emerged as the preeminent forum in Palestinian society for airing human rights concerns and other controversial issues. Council members boldly raise cases of torture and confront the executive over arbitrary acts by the security forces. This helps to explain why broadcasts by local independent stations of the full council sessions have been so popular among television viewers on the West Bank. It also may explain why the PA jammed these broadcasts last spring and why they remain off the air at this time.
To date, the U.S. has publicly intervened with the PA only when the victims of abuse have not been associated with opposition to the Israeli-PLO peace process. While such efforts are welcome, the U.S. should adopt a more principled approach by publicly encouraging the PA also to respect human rights when it responds to anti-Israel violence. Suspects should be formally charged and given fair trials or released, in contrast to the round-ups in 1996, following suicide bombings in Israel, when about one thousand suspected Islamists were arbitrarily rounded up and held for months without charge or access to lawyers.
The PA must, with international support, move quickly to institutionalize the safeguards for free expression and association and the rights of suspects in custody. It should establish clear lines of authority for its security forces and put them on notice that allegations of abuse will be thoroughly and impartially investigated and that security forces found to have committed abuses will be punished or disciplined. It should adopt the Palestinian draft Basic Law, a kind of constitution for the transitional period refined by the Legislative Council, or some other legal code that enshrines core civil and political rights in the self-rule area.
If the PA fails to institutionalize these safeguards against abuses, abusive practices that prevail today will be the blueprint for the Palestinian future. The international community, intent on addressing Israel's security concerns and preserving the Israeli-PLO peace process, must cease turning a blind eye to abuses committed in the name of security, whether by the PA or by Israel. Such an approach poses a long-term threat to the durability of the peace process that the international community supports.
Human Rights Watch wrote to the PA on several occasions to invite comment on the issues raised in this report, but has received no reply. Those letters are attached to the report.
