Gagged in Gaza

Hamas and Fatah try to silence the press

LAST month Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Palestinian authorities of detaining and torturing critical journalists. Two days later the secret police proved the human-rights campaigners right. Plainclothes officers arrested Mohammed Othman, a journalist who has criticised Hamas. He was detained for a day and a half and, he says, beaten, deprived of food and forced into painful positions.

Freedom of speech is enshrined in Palestine’s basic law. However, researchers from HRW found five other journalists and activists who were detained recently in Gaza and the West Bank (which are ruled respectively by the Islamist Hamas and the secular Fatah movements). Most of the detained journalists said they had been tortured. One was threatened by an officer brandishing a gun.

There are few data on such arrests, which both factions deny are politically motivated. Anecdotally, though, many Palestinians say they have increased. Just 20% think they enjoy press freedom, according to a March poll; 66% believe they cannot openly criticise the Palestinian Authority (PA). Even a Facebook post can provoke a visit from the authorities. In May, for example, officers hauled in a student who called the PA “rotten” on social media.

The attack on free speech is a symptom of the rot in Palestinian politics. Mahmoud Abbas, the president, has served 11 years of a four-year term, with few accomplishments to show for it. Two-thirds of his constituents want him to resign. Hamas won legislative elections in 2006 as the alternative to a corrupt Fatah, but today presides over a scene of utter despair in war-ravaged, blockaded Gaza.

Both organisations have been jittery ahead of a municipal election that was scheduled for early October. Palestinians have not held a nationwide ballot since 2006, so the smallest votes, even on university campuses, become fraught with meaning. Fatah campaigners have complained of harassment from the Hamas authorities in Gaza, and vice versa.

Both sides, then, breathed a quiet sigh of relief on September 8th, when the Palestinian high court suspended the election. It will be delayed at least until next year.

Mr Othman, for his part, is already back at work. A week after his release, he filed a story on Hamas’s efforts to restrict the foreign press. There was much to say. In May the group banned an American photographer from entering the territory, saying that her work “reflects badly on Gaza”. A new intelligence office at the border peppers arriving journalists with questions; on a recent trip, one agent took an oddly detailed interest in how often your correspondent visits Washington, DC.

Young Palestinians often joke that their next intifada, or uprising, will be against their own leaders instead of Israel. For now, their rebellion is largely confined to news websites and social media. But without any way to express their views at the ballot box, it is unlikely to stay there.

Reuters Freedom of speech is enshrined in Palestine’s basic law. But, researchers found several cases of journalists being detained in Gaza and the West Bank.