Video: Authorities Crush Dissent in Palestine

The Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas authorities in Gaza routinely arrest and torture peaceful critics and opponents. As the Palestinian Authority-Hamas feud has deepened, each has targeted the other’s supporters.

In the report, “Two Authorities, One Way, Zero Dissent,” Human Rights Watch evaluates patterns of arrest and detention conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip 25 years after the Oslo Accords granted Palestinians a degree of self-rule over these areas, and more than a decade after Hamas seized effective control over the Gaza Strip. Human Rights Watch detailed more than two dozen cases of people detained for no clear reason beyond writing a critical article or Facebook post or belonging to the wrong student group or political movement.