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Jerusalem, December 22 1999
Legislators under
siege
The
recent beating of Abdel Jawad Sallah, member of the
Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) have only been one
incident of illegal actions taken by Palestinian security
forces since distribution of the "Petition-20 Statement"
denouncing the regime of PA chairman Yasser Arafat.
On December 21, Ziad Abu-Amr,
chairman of the political committee of the PLC, complained
that PLC-members are often physically assaulted by the
security forces of the Palestinian Authority. “We cannot
protect ourselves, because there is no law to protect us,
and even if the law existed, the executive authority would
not uphold it”, Abu-Amr said in his statement.
Mo’awiya al-Masri, one of
the PLC members who signed the “Petition 20” was shot on
December 1 coming home from a PLC meeting in Gaza. He
recognised a person from the security forces as one of the
attackers.
In a closed session
the same day, the Palestinian Legislative Council decided to
form a special committee that will monitor the actions and
opinions of the PLC members, so that criticism of the PA
will not occur again.
The recent
beatings and threats against Palestinian lawmakers are not
the first in the history of the Palestinian Authority.
To mention one example, on
26 August 1998, a couple of PLC-members demonstrated against
a siege set up by Palestinian security forces against a
house in Ramallah. They were beaten by the preventive
security service. The PA decided to set up an investigative
committee the same day, but another two PLC-members were
also beaten outside the same house the day after, while
protesting against the first beatings.
The Palestinian
Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG) condemns the beating
in a broadsheet. We demand that those responsible be
prosecuted and the immediate and unconditional release of
Dr. Abdel Sattar Qassem and Dr. Ahmad Shaker Dodeen who
remain in detention under threat of trial by the State
Security Court. We also strongly protest releasing six of
the signatories on bail ($ US 75.000), which makes the
release conditional. They still await a lawsuit for signing
the statement condemning corruption.
The recent developments and
the violent assault of an elderly Palestinian Authority
legislator by Palestinian security officers is a sign of an
increasingly negative spiral of official violence and
lawlessness in the Palestinian Authority-controlled West
Bank and Gaza Strip. The most recently manifest in the
violent assault on Abdel Jawad Sallah and the human rights
worker Hanan Elmasu proves the case.
For
more information, contact the PHRMG office: Tel: 972 2
6262463, Fax: 972 2 6262378, E-mail:
admin@phrmg.org
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