Reuters
"HEBRON, West Bank, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Forces loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the Western-backed Palestinian president, are rounding up suspected Islamist activists and allegations of torture and abuse of legal procedure are mounting sharply.
"They shouted 'You're Hamas! Tell us what you're up to!' as they were hitting me," one man recounted to Reuters of an ordeal last month in a Palestinian prison in Hebron. He spoke, too, of being forced to hang or stand for hours in "stress positions".
The 25-year-old factory worker, among many to have spent time in Israeli jails on suspicion of militancy for the Islamist movement, was too afraid of the security forces to be named.
But his story is one rights monitors and Western officials say they have been hearing more often lately..... Rights monitors logged four times as many torture complaints in November as had been the previous monthly average this year......
Mohammed al-Hammouri says his son Amjad, a dentist who ran unsuccessfully for parliament in 2006 on a Hamas ticket and was arrested at his Hebron surgery in October, remains in a jail run by Abbas's intelligence service over a month after the Palestinian High Court ordered his release.
"What can I do, if they ignore even the High Court?" the elder Hammouri said......
Underscoring the rising tide of complaints, the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights logged 28 alleged cases of torture and ill-treatment in November alone in the West Bank -- 17 of these in Hebron. That compared to 26 cases in the first half of 2008 and 40 from July to October......
Palestinians say some abuses recall those used by Israeli forces. "Saying, 'We learned all of this from the Israelis', is no excuse whatsoever," said Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch......
Ramiro Cibrian-Uzal, the EU envoy to Israel, told Reuters reports of abuses, in the West Bank and Gaza, were a "concern"......Of what he termed Abbas's "counterterrorist" forces, Cibrian-Uzal offered high praise: "They are doing great.""
"HEBRON, West Bank, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Forces loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the Western-backed Palestinian president, are rounding up suspected Islamist activists and allegations of torture and abuse of legal procedure are mounting sharply.
"They shouted 'You're Hamas! Tell us what you're up to!' as they were hitting me," one man recounted to Reuters of an ordeal last month in a Palestinian prison in Hebron. He spoke, too, of being forced to hang or stand for hours in "stress positions".
The 25-year-old factory worker, among many to have spent time in Israeli jails on suspicion of militancy for the Islamist movement, was too afraid of the security forces to be named.
But his story is one rights monitors and Western officials say they have been hearing more often lately..... Rights monitors logged four times as many torture complaints in November as had been the previous monthly average this year......
Mohammed al-Hammouri says his son Amjad, a dentist who ran unsuccessfully for parliament in 2006 on a Hamas ticket and was arrested at his Hebron surgery in October, remains in a jail run by Abbas's intelligence service over a month after the Palestinian High Court ordered his release.
"What can I do, if they ignore even the High Court?" the elder Hammouri said......
Underscoring the rising tide of complaints, the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights logged 28 alleged cases of torture and ill-treatment in November alone in the West Bank -- 17 of these in Hebron. That compared to 26 cases in the first half of 2008 and 40 from July to October......
Palestinians say some abuses recall those used by Israeli forces. "Saying, 'We learned all of this from the Israelis', is no excuse whatsoever," said Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch......
Ramiro Cibrian-Uzal, the EU envoy to Israel, told Reuters reports of abuses, in the West Bank and Gaza, were a "concern"......Of what he termed Abbas's "counterterrorist" forces, Cibrian-Uzal offered high praise: "They are doing great.""
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