Abbas's militia humiliates Palestinian women in the West Bank

[ 05/02/2010 - 11:23 AM ]

A women's demonstration in the West Bank to protest the PA's political detention policies

NABLUS, (PIC)-- The PA security forces in the West Bank have summoned Layla Saqar for interrogation in a bid to pressure her husband Ahmad Nabhan Saqar who has been languishing in Israeli jails for ten years now, local sources confirmed. According to the sources, high-profile Palestinian personalities in Nablus city intervened to persuade Mahmoud Ghannam, the chief of the PA Mukhabarat (intelligence) in the city to revoke the summons because it violates the ethics and values of the Palestinian society but their efforts went in vain prompting public anger in the city. "The Abbas militias didn’t take into considerations the family condition of Layla Saqar as her husband in Israeli jails and she is the one taking care of her children in the absence of her husband", the sources quoted one of the neighbors of Layla as saying. However, Layla refused to heed the summons, stressing she won't go to the headquarters of any PA security forces in the absence of her husband. Palestinian citizens in the city criticized the summons, asserting that such policy meant to humiliate relatives of the Palestinian resistance fighters and to pressure them to give information about them. The husband, for his part, hailed the decision of his wife, and castigated the Abbas militias for following such unethical behavior that "violates the dignity and honor of the Palestinian women. He also urged human rights organizations as well as the "respected" personalities in Nablus city to pressure the militia of Abbas to stop such humiliating practices against the Palestinian people. In a related matter, the PA security forces in Ramallah city rearrested two Palestinian citizens Muayyad Bani Oudeh and Khaled Abu Al-Baha minutes after they released them from jail based on a court order. Bani Oudeh was kidnapped at the hands of Abbas's militias in 2007 alleging he was a member of Hamas Movement. For its part, the supreme bureau of the captives of Hamas Movement in the Israeli jails condemned the practices of the PA security forces in the West Bank, and described summoning Saqar as an "ethical catastrophe". "The Palestinian national reconciliation is a noble goal that we all strive to achieve, but the practices of the PA security forces in the West Bank are destroying any hope of achieving such reconciliation", the bureau underlined in a statement it issued Thursday.