For the mainstream media and human rights organizations, human rights violations are news only when they come with a “made in Israel” sticker on them.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has used international aid funds to build prisons and detention centers in the West Bank where torture has become the norm.
Dr. Ammar Dwaik, Director General of the Independent Commission for Human Rights, a Palestinian group, revealed that his group received 782 complaints regarding torture — 168 in the West Bank and 614 in the Gaza Strip.
Both Hamas and the PA each fears that in a free election it could lose some of its power. Why hold an election if you are not sure about the results?
Needed desperately: scrutiny of Palestinian society by international media and human rights groups — beginning with Palestinian prisons. Anyone stepping up?
The Palestinian Authority and Hamas are torturing Palestinians. Still.
The two Palestinian governments, the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, are both major violators of human rights. Assaults on public freedoms and crackdowns on political rivals are just the first chapters of a very long story.