Saturday 16 October 2010

AOHR accuses PA security of torturing families of slain resistance fighters

[ 16/10/2010 - 08:45 AM ]

LONDON, (PIC)-- The Arab organization for human rights (AOHR) in Britain accused the Palestinian Authority's security apparatuses of harassing and torturing families of slain resistance fighters Nashat Al-Karmi and Mamoun Al-Natsha and demanded their immediate release.

This accusation came in a press release issued on Thursday by the organization under the title "The intelligence and preventive security apparatuses take turns in torturing members of Natsha and Karmi families."

"Mr. Tayseer Al-Natsha filed a complaint with the Arab organization for human rights in Britain in which he said that following the armed operation which led to the killing of settlers on 31/08/2010, the intelligence apparatus along with the preventive security stormed and ransacked the house of the family in search of Mamoun Al-Natsha," AOHR stated.

"When they did not find him, they arrested Tayseer Al-Natsha, the father of Mamoun, where he was detained by the intelligence apparatus for two days; they also arrested [Mamoun's four] brothers. . . . The two aforementioned apparatuses arrested as well his cousins Waheeb Yaser Al-Natsha, 23, and Salah Yaser Al-Natsha, 23, and all of them are still in detention," it added.

According to AOHR, two other cousins and one brother of Mamoun were arrested and released later, and all of them affirmed they were interrogated about the whereabouts of Mamoun Al-Natsha and Nashat Karmi and the armed resistance operation in which a number of settlers were killed in Al-Khalil city last month.

The released members of Natsha family also said that their cousins and brothers, who are still in prison, are being exposed to the worst kinds of torture, especially Mua'tasim Al-Natsha, one of Mamoun's brothers, who was transferred to hospital three times because of his exposure to excruciating torture at the hands of the PA intelligence officers.

"Even my wife Umm Jaafar, an elderly woman aged 60, was interrogated by the intelligence men who came on 29/09/2010 to take her statement on Mamoun. After interrogation they left, but in the next day, a large force of intelligence and police officers surrounded the house and asked Umm Jaafar to surrender herself; the family rejected the intelligence's request and the neighborhood residents gathered and prevented them from carrying out the arrest," the father of Mamoun said in his complaint.

AOHR noted that about 400 members of Natsha family were arrested by the PA security apparatuses. The same thing happened to the family of Nashat Al-Karmi whose members were arrested, tortured and humiliated.

It pointed out that following the Israeli military operation that happened in Jabal Joher on 08/10/2010 and led to the killing of Mamoun and Nashat, the PA security apparatuses refused to release members of the two families who were arrested before the operation.

"The price which these families have paid as a result of the security coordination between the Palestinian Authority's security apparatuses and the Israeli occupation was very high. If it had not been for the investigations which the Palestinian Authority's security apparatuses were leading, the Israeli army would not have been able to reach the victims (martyrs)," AOHR concluded its statement.

In another context, the independent commission for human rights (ombudsman) said on Wednesday in its monthly report that the PA security apparatuses are still flouting the release decisions issued by courts in the West Bank, arbitrarily issue dismissal from jobs against civil servants and assault the immunity of Palestinian lawmakers.

The commission stated in its report that it received last month 30 complaints against different security apparatuses related to their refusal to comply with decisions issued by West Bank courts on the release of prisoners in their jails. It also received 463 complaints related to arbitrary dismissal from the civil service.

In a separate incident, 40 Palestinian citizens affiliated with Hamas Movement were referred to military courts and will stand trial early next month, according to sources close to the families of those detainees.
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

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