The Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) is outraged at the series of grave human rights abuses carried out by Palestinian authorities in response to the “Petition of Twenty.” The recent beating of Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) member Abdel Jawad Saleh is indicative of the repressive tactics utilized by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to suppress any legitimate opposition to its authoritarian rule within the Oslo process.
The petition, entitled “A Cry from the Homeland,” was signed by twenty prominent Palestinian intellectuals and PLC members on 28 November, 1999. The petition appealed for the “oppressed [Palestinian people] to work together against the tyranny” and endemic corruption of the PNA. The statement also accused President Yasser Arafat personally of “opening the door to widespread corruption and exploitation of the Palestinian public.”
Palestinian security services detained without charge eight of the twenty signatories to the petition in late November, releasing six of the detainees on 18 December. Arafat even tried to persuade the PLC to lift the legal immunity of its nine members who signed the petition. When this failed, two of the signatories were physically attacked.
On 2 December, armed and hooded assailants attacked PLC member, Mua’wiya Al Masri, shooting him in the foot. He was able to identify one of his attackers as a local security agent after pulling off his hood during the struggle. On 16 December Abdel Jawad Saleh was participating in a peaceful sit-in outside the Jericho Detention Centre where his arrested co-signatories were being held. He was summoned inside to meet the director of the detention centre where he was attacked by a number of agents who punched and kicked him and then whipped him with a hose, causing him numerous injuries and necessitating his immediate hospitalization.
The arbitrary arrests of the non-PLC signatories and the brutal physical attacks against PLC members are not unprecedented events but rather reflect a systematic pattern of corruption and human rights violations committed in public and with impunity by Arafat personally and his coterie of ministers, advisers and the innumerable members of his security services.
The pervasive repression and corruption in the PNA are rooted in the dynamics of the Oslo process itself. Contrary to common international perception, freedom of movement and speech, as well as overall economic and social conditions, have deteriorated sharply in the Palestinian areas since 1993 due to a combination of Israeli and PNA policies. This deterioration has occurred with the unqualified political and financial support of the Western powers, who sponsor the so-called “peace process” with no regard for the actual impact on the daily lives of Palestinians.
The Petition of Twenty merely expresses the outrage of Palestinians who under Oslo have suffered declining living standards and the abandonment of their human and national rights.
In conclusion, CESR:
- supports the Petition's call for an end to tyranny and repression by the PNA, including a cessation of corrupt practices such as theft, patronage, extortion, monopolization of economic sectors, bribe-taking and nepotism;
- calls upon the PNA immediately to cease its brutal response to dissent exemplified by recent attacks against signatories to the Petition;
- demands the immediate release of those signatories who are still being detained, as well as all political detainees imprisoned for exercising their right to freedom of expression; and
- calls upon the US, UK and other donor countries to condemn the PNA's recent campaign of repression and also to cease political and financial support of Israeli and PNA policies that violate human rights.
Please direct messages of protest to the following:
Palestine
President Arafat’s Office (fax): + [972-7] 822-365
Ministry of Justice (Freih Abu Middain) (fax): + [972-7] 867-109
United States
Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright
Email: secretary@state.gov
Address: United States Department of State, Washington, DC 20520
United Kingdom
Foreign Secretary Robin Cook
Fax: + [44-27] 839-2417