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Arbitrary Detention and Torture under the PA

(Euronews-France) Rhys Davies - In the middle of the night on November 3, 2018, 40 armed men burst into the home of Suha Jbara, a Palestinian woman with American and Panamanian citizenship, shoving their guns in her face and that of her mother and her three young children. The men were from the Palestinian Authority (PA) and demanded that she accompany them to the PA Intelligence Service headquarters in Al-Bireh. During her ten weeks of detention, Jbara was physically tortured, denied legal advice and the chance to speak to her family. She was also forced to sign a confession. Jbara's case is just one of many examples of arbitrary detention and torture under the PA. During her detention, she described how she saw other prisoners - including many teenagers - who were blindfolded, handcuffed, and forced to sit in stress positions facing the wall as cold water was poured on their faces. In October 2018, Human Rights Watch released a report which detailed how the PA crushes dissent, from controlling social media and arbitrarily arresting demonstrators, university students and journalists, to brutal torture and abuse once in custody. The PA has failed to respect the basic rights of its own people and the rule of law for too long. It cannot continue. The writer is an international criminal law and human rights law barrister, based in London and The Hague.
2019-12-20 00:00:00
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