PA Preventive Security Police arrests Hebron Journalist
By Khalid Amayreh • Jul 29th, 2008 at 21:10 • Category: Action Alert, Counter-terrorism, No thanks!, Newswire, PalestineHebron: Occupied Palestinian Territories
By Nour Amir in Jerusalem
The Palestinian Authority (PA) Preventive Security Force (PSF) on Tuesday arrested Awadh Rajoub, a Hebron-area journalist, apparently as part of a general crackdown on non-conformist journalists and intellectuals.
Eyewitnesses said a dozen PSF officers raided and searched Rajoub’s press office in the small town of Dura, 12 miles south west of Hebron shortly before sunset Tuesday.
His family said it had no idea why Rajoub, an independent journalist with no political affiliation, was arrested.
Rajoub, 29, works for the Arabic service of al-Jazeera.net and a number of other media outlets.
In 2006, Rajoub was arrested for six months by the Israeli authorities for conducting press interviews with “hostile elements,” a reference to some Hamas officials.
The American-backed Palestinian security agencies have been arresting hundreds of activists, civic and religious leaders as well as journalists and intellectuals with Islamic orientation throughout the West Bank, apparently in retaliation for the recent arrests by Hamas of dozens of Fatah members in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas held the “treasonous camp” with Fatah, led by former Gaza Strong man, Muhammed Dahlan, responsible for Friday’s car bombing on the Gaza beach, which killed five members of Hamas’s military wing, the Izzidin al Kassam Brigades, as well as a six-year-old girl.
Fatah denied any involvement in the bombing but Fatah officials and media displayed satisfaction at the incident.
Last year Hamas carried out a preemptive coup against the American-backed Fatah forces in Gaza after it became apparent that Dahlan was planning a coup against the democratically-elected government led by Hamas in collusion with the CIA and Israel.
Dahlan and hundreds of his men eventually fled to the West Bank where they reportedly continued to work to destabilize the Gaza government.
Khalid Amayreh is a journalist based in the Occupied Palestinian town of Dura.
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