RAMALLAH, Thursday, November 22, 2018 (WAFA) – Ministry of Interior Thursday slammed a recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report accusing the Palestinian Authority of making widespread use of arbitrary arrests and torture to quell criticism and political opposition as exaggerated.
Titled Two Authorities, One Way, Zero Dissent, the 149-page report accuses the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its rival Hamas in the besieged Gaza Strip of using “systematic arbitrary arrests and torture” to silence political activism, especially on social media.
“The Palestinian Government stresses here that the HRW’s report has exaggerated about the legal and political characterization of the alleged violations,” read the Palestinian government’s response to the HRW’s report.
Speaking during a press conference at the Ministry of Interior (MoI) in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Deputy Interior Minister Major General Mohammad Mansour affirmed the PA’s commitment to respect and defend human rights and prevent all forms of torture as per official instructions.
He stressed that the PA has taken several legislative and administrative steps to “create a balance between achieving security and stability and the rules of law and justice” and to “ensure the respect of human rights during the conducting of security operations, such as arrests, searches and dealing with cases of law violation.”
Mansour said that HRW issued the report without taking into consideration the response it had received from MoI, including all feedback received from the various security forces.
He stated that the government “strongly deplores the report’s allegations concerning serious violations of human rights law” and “rejects the reference to ‘torture’ practiced by the State of Palestine, which amounted to the level of crimes against humanity.”
He called on HRW to seriously review the testimonies underlying its report and confirmed that “all violations reported by HRW or other organizations are not consistent with the methodological procedures applied by the State of Palestine.”
He reiterated that the government will continue “to conduct investigations, and indeed take the necessary legal action against anyone found guilty of violations, including arbitrary detention or torture” and bring them to justice.
K.F./M.K.
