Days of Palestine – Ramallah

The Committee of the Families of Political Prisoners accused the Palestinian Authority (PA), last night, of waging a campaign of arrest and summoning of activists and citizens in the occupied West Bank, against a political background.

The committee said in a press statement that the PA arrested the editor, Ahmed Darwish, from the northern city of Nablus, after he was summoned for an investigation yesterday.

It indicated that it had summoned a group of freed prisoners and former political detainees, among whom were known: “Malik Shtayyeh, Awni Al-Shakhshir, Bara Rayhan, Mahmoud Aseda” in Nablus.

A court in Nablus – according to the committee – rejected the request to release the two students at An-Najah University, Hussam Shtayyeh, and Ibrahim Abed, noting that they had been detained for 10 days by the intelligence service of PA.

It stressed that "the arrests carried out by the authorities against students and citizens in the West Bank are carried out illegally, in terms of arrest procedures, charges and even release procedures, as well as the investigation process that is full of physical and psychological torture methods and threats."

The committee said that this campaign comes under the shadow of the launch of Cairo dialogues between the Palestinian factions to reach understandings about the general elections.

It demands leaders and activists in the West Bank meeting in Cairo to discuss the issue of public freedoms and guarantee them in the West Bank.

They called on the security forces of the PA to lift their hands from the people of Hamas, unleash public freedoms, stop political arrests, neutralize the security services from the election march and interfere with terrorizing citizens and influence their thinking in an attempt to dissuade them from participating in the elections.

The committee also said that the PA's security forces continue to carry out political arrests, which come in light of a campaign of arrests and summonses carried out by the Israeli occupation security services, which also aims to dissuade the people of Hamas from actively participating in the upcoming general Palestinian elections."