Prisoners: Palestinians Detained by the Palestinian Authority
Arbitrary detention without charge or trial, torture and ill-treatment during interrogation, grossly unfair trials, and restrictions on freedom of association and expression continued. Efforts by individuals, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) to document and combat these violations were constrained by the lack of a legal framework clearly specifying the duties and responsibilities of the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government. Palestinian Authority (P.A.) president Yasir Arafat's continued refusal to sign the Basic Law, as well as eight of the twenty-seven other laws passed by the PLC since 1996, further undermined efforts to institutionalize necessary safeguards and to limit serious executive branch abuses.
Palestinian security forces continued to carry out arbitrary arrests and detentions, holding detainees for years without charge and without access to lawyers or family visits, sometimes even after the P.A.'s attorney general or courts had ordered access to lawyers or releases. For example, Wa'il `Ali Faraj, arrested on April 25, 1996, remained in detention despite a February 20, 1999 High Court order for his release. Those released were sometimes immediately rearrested, as in the case of Dr. `Abd al-`Aziz al-Rantisi. Arrested on April 9, 1998 and ordered released on June 4, 1998, he was released on July 19, 1999-to attend his mother's funeral-but rearrested on August 8 after being quoted in al-Quds newspaper as saying his detention was due to P.A. security cooperation with Israel and the US. The court ordered his release on September 27, but as of mid-October he remained in custody.
Security forces sometimes detained or placed under house arrest the relatives of wanted individuals. For example, fifteen-year-old Bilal Yehya al-Ghoul was detained by the General Intelligence Service from 12 February to 2 March. The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) reported that his arrest and torture was primarily to force his father, Yehya al-Ghoul, to surrender to police. The entire family had previously been placed under house arrest when the older al-Ghoul escaped from prison on December 11, 1998. Bilal was reportedly detained with adults and denied visits by his family and lawyer.
As of mid-October there had been one death in custody. Muhammad Ahmad Shrieteh died in hospital after being transferred from the Hebron police station in convulsions. According to LAW he had been detained without a warrant by Preventative Security Services on September 28.
Lawyers continued to report difficulty in seeing their clients, despite receiving permits from the attorney general or court orders allowing visits, with the denial of access sometimes having a punitive character. Beginning in May LAW, the Gaza office of Addameer, and PCHR were denied access to clients held in Gaza prisons controlled by the police department because of their reporting on violations of detainees' rights. According to LAW, Prison Service Director General Hamdi al-Rifi attributed the ban to a decision by Chief of Police Ghazi Al-Jabali. The Palestinian Bar Association held a one day strike on April 15 to protest interference in lawyers' fulfillment of their legal duties and the "lack of respect for the law, vacancy of the chief justice and attorney general's posts, failure to implement the Judiciary Law, and abandonment of the judiciary to suffer from a huge shortage of judges and administrative personnel."
Public protests against untried political detentions increased, with detainees holding lengthy hunger strikes and family members demonstrating to demand their trial or release. On January 13 the legislature passed a resolution calling for a prohibition on political detentions and the immediate release of political detainees. In late September Addameer estimated there to be 280 political prisoners in P.A. custody.
The judiciary continued to suffer from a severe lack of human and material resources, and trials fell far short of international fair trial standards. The June appointment of a chief justice and a civilian attorney general filled posts long vacant but had no effect on the State Security Courts (SSC) and military courts. President Arafat refused to sign and implement the Judicial Authority Law passed by the parliament in November 1998, leaving the West Bank and Gaza with separate judicial systems. In addition, Presidential Decree 28, issued September 19, gave the Gaza-based chief justice powers to discipline and transfer judges in both the West Bank and Gaza, although West Bank law and theJudicial Authority Law gave these powers to a Supreme Judicial Council. On October 11, a group of West Bank judges declared an open strike to protest transfers ordered by the chief justice.
Military and State Security Courts had the power to try civilians and denied almost all due process rights, including the right to appeal. Empowered to issue death sentences for a variety of vaguely worded crimes, they were responsible for the majority of the death sentences issued. Sentences were sometimes issued only hours after arrest, and often appeared to be influenced by political considerations, as in the case of Ahmed `Atiya Abu Mustafa, executed on February 26. Mustafa, who was arrested on February 21 on charges of raping a child, was sentenced to fifteen years hard labor for the rape, and under the 1979 Revolutionary Code was additionally sentenced to death for "inciting the public against the authorities," apparently in reference to public outrage and demands for his execution. On July 1 President Arafat expanded the jurisdiction of the State Security Courts by presidential decree to include "economic offenses."