Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Palestine: Palestinian Authority Police Beat Protesters

10 Injured, Including 3 Arrested at Hospital

"(Jerusalem)– The Palestinian Authority should order an immediate and impartial investigation into alleged police beatings and arbitrary arrests of demonstrators in Ramallah on July 28, 2013. Police injured about 10 protesters and arrested 5, including 3 who were forcibly removed from a hospital where they had received emergency treatment. At least one policeman appears to have suffered injuries needing hospital treatment.

Several hundred people gathered in downtown Ramallah in the West Bank on the afternoon of July 28 to demonstrate against the US-brokered resumption of final-status talks between the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Israel. When regular and riot police blocked their route, protesters shouted and some threw sticks and later stones. The police responded with apparent excessive force, striking protesters, including those demonstrating peacefully, with batons, witnesses told Human Rights Watch. A member of parliament who was among the demonstrators told Human Rights Watch that police pushed her to the ground and beat her.

The police beat protesters and then arrested injured people, some even from the hospital,” said Tom Porteous, deputy program director at Human Rights Watch. “The Palestinian Authority needs to make clear to the police that this is no way to handle a demonstration.”....."

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