PALESTINIAN FREE SPEECH

PA arrests academic for voicing criticism.
A Palestinian academic who criticized one of the Palestinian security forces for failing to impose law and order in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during a television show was arrested immediately afterwards by Palestinian security agents. Prof. Riad al-Agha, president of the Gaza-based National Institute of Strategic Studies, was invited on Sunday by Palestine TV to participate in a live program on the growing state of lawlessness and anarchy in PA-controlled areas.

At the beginning of the program, the presenter, Dr. Hazem Abu Shanab, welcomed Agha and invited viewers to participate in the debate by phone. He also encouraged his guest and the viewers to talk frankly and without fear about the upsurge in criminal activity.

At one point, Prof. Agha criticized the PA’s Preventative Security Force for refusing to obey orders issued by the PA Interior Ministry, which is in charge of all Palestinian security forces. He claimed that the Preventative Security Force, which is headed by Gen. Rashid Abu Shabak, was operating on instructions from the “higher echelon” of the PA – a reference to PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his top aides.

Immediately after the program ended, members of the Preventative Security Force arrested Agha on charges of “incitement.” PA security officials said it was not the fist time that the professor had publicly criticized the Palestinian security forces. “This was not the first time that he had incited against the Preventative Security Force and the Interior Ministry,” said one official.

Prof. Agha was released from prison only after he agreed to publish a statement in which he apologized for making “offensive remarks” against the security forces and their commanders. In the apology, he said the Preventative Security Force was led by “nationalistic figures whom I highly appreciate and respect and who have a known history of struggling [against Israel].”