Palestinian security forces accused of using torture 'to crush dissent' in Gaza and occupied West Bank

Palestinian security forces regularly torture prisoners and arrest political opponents “to crush dissent” in both the occupied West Bank and Gaza, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Tuesday.

A new report said both the Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) and its rivals in Hamas make systematic use of torture and widespread arrests which could amount to crimes against humanity.

HRW called on Britain, the US, and the EU cut off funding for the PA’s security forces until they stop torturing detainees and investigate officers of accused of abuse. The group also called on Qatar, Iran, and Turkey to halt their funding for Hamas.

Both the PA and Hamas security forces denied to HRW that they practice torture and said they investigate all allegations of abuse.

Tom Porteous, deputy programme director at HRW, said those claims were not accurate. “Calls by Palestinian officials to safeguard Palestinian rights ring hollow as they crush dissent,” he said.

In one of the most disturbing allegations, HRW said PA security forces arrested a 32-year-old civil servant and tied a cord around his genitals for eight hours, causing them to “swell and turn blue”.

The man said his captors kept him a small room known as “the closet”, roughly 60cm by 60cm, where he struggled to breath. He said he was kept in the room for 22 hours a day for 22 days in a detention facility in Jericho in the West Bank.

His interrogators wanted him to confess to taking part in a murder he had seen a month earlier. “If you do not speak, you will be destroyed,” one security officer reportedly told him.

Other detainees in Hamas prisons in Gaza said they were beaten and kept in painful stress positions for hours at a time in a room they called “the bus”.

HRW said both the PA and Hamas suppressed free speech, arrested critics, stifled the media, and prevented people from taking to the streets to protest.

“The PA and Hamas have both clamped down on the major outlets for dissent available to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza,” the report said.

One Palestinian journalist was arrested in Gaza for 15 days after publishing a post on Facebook asking if the children of Hamas leaders “sleep on the floor like ours do”. The journalist was charged with “misuse of technology”.

Both Gaza and parts of the West Bank were under PA control until 2007, when Hamas overthrew the PA government in Gaza and seized power. The PA has been left with control of sections of the West Bank, while Israel maintains control of most of it.

The report found that repression in both Gaza and the West Bank had become worse as the PA and Hamas hunted each other’s supporters in their territory. “Where they have autonomy, they have developed parallel police states,” said Mr Porteous.

HRW has previously accused Israel’s security forces of torturing Palestinian detainees and abusing children taking into Israeli custody. Israel denies the claims.

The latest HRW report is unlikely to have much impact on Hamas, which is considered a terrorist group by the US and EU and is supported by states like Iran with dismal human rights records of their own.

But the report may put strong pressure on the PA security forces, who are largely funded by the West. The US and EU both support the PA and argue that the Palestinian security forces play a major role in preventing violence against Israel.

A spokesman for the PA prime minister did not respond to a request for comment.

Israeli and PA security forces cooperate closely against Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups, although neither side is eager to discuss the relationship in public.