PA security agencies make hundreds of arrests in one month

The Committee for the Families of Political Prisoners and Detainees in the West Bank has reported that it has documented 522 assaults by Palestinian Authority security officers in February. The Preventive Security Service, says the committee report, arrested 107 people, while the Intelligence Service arrested 48 people; 19 other arrests were unexplained.

Detentions have generally been made by various means. Last month these included 87 cases of abduction, 42 raids and 37 summonses; again, eight cases were unexplained.

According to the committee, those arrested included 73 prisoners who had been freed either by the Israelis or PA; 89 former political prisoners, 36 or whom are university students; three school students; and two journalists.

Read: The PA is torturing Palestinians; why is this not a major scandal?

A majority of the detainees were from the governorate of Hebron, in the south of the occupied West Bank, with 87 arrests, followed by Jenin, 18 arrests; Tulkarem, 17 arrests; Nablus and Bethlehem 15 arrests each; Ramallah and Al-Bireh with ten arrests each; Qalqilya, Salfit and Tubas, each with seven arrests; and one arrest in Jericho.

The committee said that the Intelligence Service issued summonses to 107 citizens, while the Preventive Security officials summonsed 92 people. A further 47 were not explained in any detail. Those summonsed included 47 freed prisoners; 143 former political prisoners, of whom 21 are university students; three school students; four journalists; and six teachers. As with the recorded detentions, Hebron had the most summonses issued to residents of the city.

The report explained that the most prominent violations were documented against students aligned with the Islamic bloc in West Bank universities. The PA security services deny making political arrests in the West Bank or torturing detainees on political grounds. The official spokesman of the security establishment, General Adnan Al-Daminri, has said on several occasions that security work is subject to heavy censorship.