Gaza / West Bank: Investigate Attacks on Rights Defenders

Mahmud Abu Rahma Stabbed in Gaza; Yazan Sawafta Beaten in West Bank

AN IMPORTANT ARTICLE

January 19, 2012

"(Jerusalem) – Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) should investigate recent brutal attacks against human rights defenders in Gaza and the West Bank and hold those responsible to account, Human Rights Watch said today.

In Gaza, Mahmud Abu Rahma, the international relations director for Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, a Palestinian rights group, was stabbed repeatedly on the night of January 13, 2012, by masked assailants, after being beaten by a group of unidentified men on January 3. The attacks followed his public criticism of Hamas and the impunity of armed groups in Gaza. Al Mezan had previously informed Hamas of death threats against him.

In the West Bank, a member of the Palestinian Authority’s Preventive Security agency beat Yazan Sawafta, a lawyer and researcher for the Independent Commission for Human Rights on January 9, according to a statement by the group. Sawafta had been covering a demonstration by relatives of prisoners detained by the PA.

“Hamas and the Palestinian Authority should not sit idly by while human rights defenders are being stabbed and beaten in the streets, in some cases by these groups’ own officials,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Palestinian leaders should ensure that Abu Rahma and Sawafta are not victims of the very impunity that these two men have courageously documented.”

Abu Rahma, who has worked on human rights issues in Gaza for 15 years, told Human Rights Watch that he was returning home from his office at around 11:15 p.m. on January 13 when three men wearing masks accosted him on the ground floor of his apartment building in Tel el-Hawa, in southern Gaza City, and began to stab him. He suffered four knife wounds in his right leg, two in his left shoulder and left hand, two in the back, and bruises where his clothes had prevented other knife cuts.

“They called me an atheist and a collaborator while they were attacking me,” Abu Rahma told Human Rights Watch. He could not identify his attackers. His family called a doctor who treated him at home at around 3 a.m. “The doctor wanted me to go to the hospital, but we felt it wasn’t safe to leave,” he said......"