WEST BANK (Dispatches) – Palestinian Authority (PA) forces arrested a Palestinian lawyer and three activists in front of the courts complex in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday morning, amid heightened tensions over the PA’s targeting of activists and demonstrators.
Security forces detained Muhannad Karajah, a Palestinian human rights defender and attorney, and a member of Lawyers for Justice, a Palestinian group focused on human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Sunday’s arrests occurred while a hearing was underway for activists who were arrested a day earlier over their political activism and their participation in a protest in Ramallah against the PA.
On Saturday, hundreds of Palestinians gathered in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah to demonstrate against PA President Mahmoud Abbas, hoping to inject new momentum into a protest movement sparked by the death of an outspoken critic in the custody of security forces.
Palestinian security forces and groups of men in plainclothes dispersed a similar protest a week ago, drawing expressions of concern from rights groups. There were no immediate reports of violence at Saturday’s demonstration.
The PA was established as part of the so-called peace process in the 1990s and governs parts of the Zionist regime-occupied West Bank.
It has grown increasingly domineering and unpopular, and Abbas cancelled the first elections in 15 years in April when it looked like his fractured Fatah party would lose.
Saturday’s demonstration began with a few hundred protesters gathering in al-Manara Square in central Ramallah, the PA headquarters.
The mother of Nizar Banat, the activist whose death last month sparked the protests, and other family members were welcomed with applause and gave brief speeches.
The crowd then made a loop through downtown, gathering force as it marched until thousands could be heard chanting “Abbas, leave.”
The Fatah party, which is led by Abbas and dominates the PA, meanwhile held a rally in the southern West Bank city of al-Khalil in which supporters waved the party’s trademark yellow flags.