As efforts to end all outstanding political differences, Hamas and Fatah officials are in talks to simultaneously release all political prisoners detained in Gaza and the West Bank. The efforts for political reconciliation stretch to include ending all politically motivated detentions, travel restrictions, the reopening of respective offices and freedom of political and popular activities. The news was communicated by officials on Monday at the end of a month that has seen the strongest efforts to reunite the rival factions seen since unity talks utterly failed in May. “Abbas gave instructions to the director of the Palestinian Authority's general intelligence service, Majid Faraj, to release Hamas-affiliated detainees stated in a list received from Hamas,” Fatah affiliated lawmaker Faysal Abu Shahla told Ma'an News Agency. Hamas has submitted a list of detainees held in the West Bank and a special committee is reviewing the names. Fatah likewise submitted a list of 47 Fatah affiliates detained by the de facto Gaza government. The former rival parties will agree soon on a date for the simultaneous release of Fatah and Hamas detainees, Fatah lawmaker Abu Sahla said. Implying that the West Bank-based PA does not take political prisoners, he added that “… there are no political detainees in Ramallah, only suspects held on security-related charges.” However, the question of Palestinian detainees in PA prisons has always been an issue of major controversy, both due to the question of detention of political prisoners due to internal Palestinian rivalry, but also due to the fact that the PA since the Oslo-agreement in 1993 has been working as the de-facto Israeli presence in the West Bank. The PA's security service has repeatedly been slammed by activists for carrying out the political prosecution and detentions for Israel. In general, freedom of political and popular activities has been highly questionable, in particular since the split that happened after elections were held in 2006. Then, grave disputes split the just formed National Unity Government, and ended with a Hamas takeover of the coastal enclave of Gaza with Ismael Haniyeh as chief. A West Bank-based Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas, subsequently trusted with limited parts of ruling of the West Bank by Israel. Israel refused to recognize Hamas as anything else than a terrorist unity. Since then, Abbas' government has been severely criticized for its alleged desire to please the occupier, dubbed a “compliant cooperator.” The PA, for its part, is arguing it is solely “keeping head above water,” neither angering the occupier nor the international society un-necessarily by not negotiating with Israel. As the Arab spring raged on in Tunisia and Egypt, young Palestinians were busy staging protests to bring an end to Hamas-Fatah animosities and sought national reconciliation for a united Palestine, able to stand stronger against the occupier. In Ramallah's Manara Square, youngsters stood out a mere three-weeks hunger-strike, at the time vowing to continue the strike until the Palestinian Authority released political prisoners. However, it never did. In June, the wife of political detainee Anas Rasras was arrested in her home by PA Preventive Security forces, shortly after she visited her husband in the security prison in Al-Dhahiriyya south of Al-Khalil city. She was questioned on her husband and on her participation in protests in Al-Khalil (Hebron) against political detention by the Palestinian Authority. She was also threatened that security agencies could carry out a search raid on her home at any given moment. According to the Political Prisoners Committee of the West Bank, the number of detainees in the PA security prisons in April was at 420, including more than 300 who had been been previously detained and 100 who had received sentences. The Committee has repeatedly called on Palestinian legislators, party representatives, and legal and human rights bodies to join protests to pressure for the release of the West Bank political prisoners, saying that the political persecution of the PA cannot go on. Concluding on the issue of political prosecution and detention in the Palestinian Territories, Amnesty International in 2000 urged the PA to respect the rights of free expression and the rights of detainees in general. “No one should be arrested or detained, subjected to ill-treatment or harassment for the non-violent expression of their beliefs,” the report stressed, adding that “No one should be held without respect for basic due process guarantees and outside the framework of Palestinian law.” Following a meeting in Cairo last week, leaders of the factions are due to meet again in Cairo on December 20 to finally discuss the forming of a unity government. Last week in Cairo, President Abbas and the head of Hamas leadership Khaled Meshaal agreed on a two-page document restating their commitment to the main components of the original unity deal of May, saying they would establish a joint government after elections in May 2012. BM
