PA Mukhabarat abducts journalist minutes after he was set free

From Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank

Masked men affiliated with the Palestinian Authority (PA) Mukhabarat or General Intelligence on Friday nabbed a Palestinian journalist minutes after he was released from jail in the northern West Bank town of Qalqilya, the journalist’s family and lawyer said.

The Palestinian High Court of Justice last week ordered Mustafa Sabri “immediately released” from a protracted detention by the Military Intelligence (MI), one of a myriad of security agencies operating in the West Bank under the Israeli occupation However, the MI refused to heed the court order without any explanation.

On Friday, 12 September, Sabri was finally set free, ending more than 45 days of what his lawyer described as arbitrary incarceration.

However, as soon as the 42-year-old journalist left the MI lockup, heading home, a group of masked men ganged up on him, forcing him into an awaiting car, and then took him to an unknown destination, his wife said.

A few hours later, his family found out that he was being detained at the Mukhabarat headquarters in downtown Qaliqilya.

“I think they only wanted to demonstrate how mean and cruel they are,” his wife said.

She pointed out that her husband was being tormented and harassed for his political orientation and religiosity.

“They have no shred of evidence that would indict him for any wrongdoing. They just want to avenge what happened in Gaza. That is it.”

Prior to his release and subsequent abduction, MI officials demanded that Sabri’s family pay three thousand Jordanian Dinars (roughly $4500) to bail him out of jail.

However, the family refused to pay the demanded sum on the ground that his court-ordered release was unconditional and didn’t include an attached bail to it.

The Palestinian justice system has been nearly completely paralyzed by the generally undisciplined Palestinian security apparatus which refuses to heed court orders to release prisoners held and often tortured on suspicion of sympathizing with Hamas and other Islamic groups.

The PA security agencies, financed and trained by the U.S., are mainly answerable to PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas and pay little attention to decisions and instructions by the western-backed government of Salam Fayyad.

A spokesman for the Ramallah-based government described as “chaotic” and “unstable” the rule of law in the West Bank.

“You should realize that we are not in Switzerland,” said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was unauthorized to speak to the press.

Sabri had been arrested several times by the PA security agencies, mostly in connection with his work as a journalist.

The PA denies that his arrest and detention had anything to do with his profession, saying that some journalists are detained for violating the law.

However, human rights groups operating in occupied Palestine dismiss such claims as “unserious” and “largely facetious.”

Sabri is an elected member of the Qalqiya municipal council. The bulk of the council’s members are associated with the Palestinian Islamic movement.

Last month, the PA incarcerated for an entire month another Palestinian journalist, Awadh Rajoub, in connection with news reports he had been writing for al-Jazeera.net.

Rajoub said he was subjected to many forms of mistreatment at the Preventive Security Force (PSF) lockup in Hebron.

It is widely believed that the main purpose behind the frequent arrest of journalists in the West Bank is to make them exercise self-censorship.