Al-Hindi and Bahar urge release of all political detainees held by Hamas and Fat'h governments

Acting PLC speaker urges release of all political detainees held by Hamas and PA

Date: 06 / 08 / 2008 Time: 15:01
Gaza – Ma'an –

The acting speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), Ahmed Bahar on Wednesday called on the de facto Prime Minister in the Gaza Strip, Isma'il Haniyah, to issue "general amnesty for all detainees including Fatah leaders who were not proved guilty of involvement in the recent explosions in Gaza City."

Furthermore, On behalf of the Israeli-imprisoned speaker of the PLC, Aziz Al-Duwaik, Bahar called on the Palestinian president to release all political prisoners detained by the (Fat'h-dominated) Palestinian Authority in the West Bank following Hamas' reaction to Gaza beach bombings on 25 July. Bahar also called for a halt to politically-motivated apprehensions.

Bahar, a Hamas member, made his appeal during a press conference held in Gaza City on the occasion of the second anniversary of the arrest and imprisonment of PLC Speaker Aziz Al-Duwaik and 42 other members of the Council.

He called on "all free people of the world" as well as Arab and international parliaments, the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference to fulfill their moral responsibility towards Palestinian lawmakers detained in Israel.

Bahar also urged on Hamas and Fatah to as well as the Palestinian president and Prime Minister immediately begin direct talks. He suggested that the first round of talks be held under the umbrella of the PLC in order to determine the basic limits of dialogue and to examine previous agreements and mutual interests.

Bahar put forward a nine point initiative calling for dialogue, releasing political prisoners on both sides, halting media incitement and reopening all charities and associations that the de facto government has closed in the Gaza Strip. It also included allowing distribution of three major Palestinian daily newspapers in the Gaza Strip which were banned by the de facto government.

When Bahar read his statement announcing the initiative, he was accompanied by several Hamas-affiliated PLC members in addition to PLC member Jamil Majdalawi from the leftist-nationalist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Majdalawi said after the press conference that he supports solidarity with detained PLC speaker Aziz Al-Duwaik, but he opposes Bahar's comments accusing the PA and its president of cooperating with the Israeli occupation remaining silent on the detention of Al-Duwaik. He also reiterated his call for a national dialogue that encompasses not just Hamas and Fatah.

Al-Hindi: form committee to ensure release of all detainees held by Hamas and Fatah

Date: 06 / 08 / 2008 Time: 16:36
Gaza – Ma'an –

Islamic Jihad leader Muhammad Al-Hindi on Wednesday called on both the Hamas and Fatah movements to release all political detainees.

The first step is forming a committee to investigate the number of political detainees from both factions, and there has been progress on this, Al-Hindi said in press statements on Wednesday. He stressed that there are intensive ongoing efforts to secure the release of all detainees from the Fatah and Hamas movements and to overcome the internal crisis.

However, Al-Hindi argued against starting the inter-Palestinian dialogue in Cairo before the detainees had been released. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has called for a dialogue between Palestinian factions under Egyptian and Arab League sponsorship. Al-Hindi cautioned that he did not want Cairo to be "a place of abortive Palestinian negotiations."

Instead, all political detainees from both factions should be released first, Al-Hindi said, and then internal relations should be rehabilitated before heading to any new high-profile dialogue effort, to avoid a public collapse of the negotiations as occurred in previous Egyptian-sponsored efforts.

"Our position in Islamic Jihad is constant: we are against political detentions," Al-Hindi said, commenting on the situation in Gaza. "This is also the attitude of all the other political factions, including Hamas and Fatah, and we stand together with our brothers in both factions."

"The problem is that things went in a different way," added Al-Hindi. "We want to build relationships on the principle of forbidding political arrests and releasing all detainees. We are making efforts in this context to release all political detainees from both sides. However, the current efforts may not be enough," he noted, "since only a few detainees have been released so far in the West Bank and Gaza Strip."

A committee should be formed to monitor the issue of political arrests, Al-Hindi concluded, until there are no more political detainees in either the Gaza Strip or West Bank.

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