Mahmoud Abbas
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Security forces of the rival Palestinian governments routinely use torture and arbitrary arrests, among other tactics, to quash dissent by peaceful activists and political opponents, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.
The charges came in a new report released by the New York-based watchdog, following a two-year investigation that included interviews with nearly 150 people, many of them ex-detainees. It accused both the Western-backed Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the Islamic militant Hamas in Gaza of using “machineries of repression” to stifle criticism.
Human Rights Watch also said the systematic use of torture could amount to a crime against humanity under the United Nations’ Convention against Torture, and called on countries that provide funding to Palestinian law enforcement to suspend their assistance.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ government joined the convention after Palestine was accepted as a nonmember state at the U.N.
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