PA Lockup on New Prisoner Death
March 5, 2013 15:45 by Pesach Benson
Had Ayman Samarah been found dead in an Israeli prison cell, he’d be just as famous as Arafat Jaradat, who was all over the news last week.
But Samarah died in a Palestinian Authority prison cell, not an Israeli one.
The PA wouldn’t allow Palestinian journalists to cover the story. Imagine that.
According to the Jerusalem Post‘s Khaled Abu Toameh, Samarah was being held in Jericho jail, charged with assault. Family members said the 40-year-old Samarah had diabetes and high blood pressure.
The PA is investigating the death, but Toameh raises a lot of questions:
One journalist, Mustafa Khawaja, who worked for the local Al-Aksa TV station, was detained by PA security officers for several hours when he tried to report on a sit-in strike by families of Palestinians held in Jericho Prison . . .
Palestinians said over the weekend that some detainees had complained of torture while being held in the prison.
On Saturday, the mother of Karim Shaheen, who is being held in Jericho Prison, said that her son has been hospitalized after suffering from paralysis in in his left arm as a result of torture.
The family of another detainee, Baha Zahdeh, also accused the PA security forces of torturing their son, who is being held in the same prison on suspicion of membership in Hamas.
The PA was quick to make groundless vile claims that Jaradat was tortured during interrogation and then moved to a cell with Palestinian collaborators who promptly killed him. Israel will probe Jaradat’s death. The inquiry will include an international observer.
Considering the PA’s failed effort to cover up Samarah, don’t expect Ramallah to hold itself to the same lofty standards of transparency it demands of Israel.
Which raises the issue of another double-standard at play.
Ironically, just one day before Samarah’s death, Tim Marshall of Sky News observed that the torture and death of detainees in PA custody never gets the same media interest as anything that happens behind Israeli bars.
Contrast this with a subject which rarely gets headlines, and which fails to spark debate; the conditions of Palestinians in Palestinian jails. Few people speak for them, their fate does not generate demonstrations or agonised debate, nor righteous anger in the outside world . . .
Palestinians are well aware that few people will stand up for them if they are taken into the police stations and prisons run by the Palestinian authorities in either Gaza or the West Bank. They know that torture in these establishments is routine and that deaths in custody occur there as well.
Indeed, there was no shortage of Big Media interest in Jaradat.
His death, funeral, and the international reactions were duly noted by AP, Reuters, BBC, Washington Post, NY Times, LA Times, Wall St. Journal, The Independent, The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Irish Times, Time, Sydney Morning Herald and CNN, among others.
Having set such a high bar on prisoner coverage, can these papers match their output for Samarah and his outraged family?
Or do dead detainees not make a sound when they fall in a Palestinian prison?
Image: CC BY flickr/Casey Serin.
Gary Katz
4:51 pm
Mar 05, 2013
Good point about Palestinian prison deaths. This phenomenon is consistent with the double standard applied to Israel in all matters. It’s a combination of Israel being under the world’s biggest magnifying glass and the Palestinian penchant for hyperbole, whining and outright lies. According to their construct, the re-establishment of Israel was the worst calamity since the extinction of the dinosaurs, Israel is the most powerful and evil empire on the planet (it even commands sharks to attack Egyptian tourists, a la Aqua Man) and the Palestinians have gone through a combination of a holocaust, Rwanda, Stalin’s purges and the siege of Leningrad, all while completely innocent & defenseless.
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Tony
5:22 pm
Mar 05, 2013
Why are’nt the Norwegean press,and International medias like CNN, BBC, The Guardian, exposing this Dramatic event.? Or is it simply because the Prisoner did not die in an Israeli Prison? The Norwegeans have already admitted to Palestinian support for Anti- Israel manifestations,,and Biased reportings,,I don’t think the death of this Palestinian interests them or the other medias,so much, But lets not count on them staying quiet,, they will obviously find some reason to Blame Israel.
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Andrew
1:32 am
Mar 08, 2013
If the Palestinians get a wriggle on there won’t be anybody left to fight they can kill each other and no one outside Israel will know. When their all gone how will the media explain how they missed that event
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Brent Pudsey
2:23 pm
Mar 10, 2013
This will remind the world that the PA does not respect human life to the same degree as Israel and remind the world that they should reconsider supporting such an inhumane government.
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motti
9:17 pm
Mar 10, 2013
Good point Tony concerning Norway in particular. That country produces the most hateful Fakestinian propaganda against Israel out of all the western media. Please check the excellent and brave blog Norway Israel and the Jews.
The Elite establishment is the cause of the hate towards Israel and the Jews. There will not be any improvement until the communists sre thrown out. Most of Europe is communist led,which explains why the EU is fanatically anti Israel and refuses to list Hamas a a terror group.
Check out the names of those Norwegian communists involved in the disastrous Oslo Accords, and then ask, how and why Israeli leftwingers would want to trust the lousy swines,Treasonous!!!
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Augustus Silverton
9:33 am
Mar 12, 2013
It’s excellent, that HR reports about also THIS story here. I read it in the NY Times. Only the first article of theirs in this “line” of inquiry status and public knowledge. TERRIBLE. “ARAB (maybe?) MURDERED IN ISRAEL PRISON”. OY. Leads to murder and violence evrywhere against Jews. THE dig-pot FOR ANY neonazis (“antisemites”).
ALSO, dear Sisters (may the circle be open
and Brethren:
In the Spiegel, the german mag, it’s now since some 5 months better, but NOT since SIX months: SIX months ago, approximately, the Spiegel featured an interview with a US jewish “punk”, who said: ” ISRAEL? Just BOMB da PLACE ! I get a BJ, and THAT’s IT, no more SILLY Tel AVILLY !!! ”
)) hihi.as if…
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Augustus Silverton
9:43 am
Mar 12, 2013
yes, I do write it out, yes, yes: AS IF even MOST of ISRAELIS would be “ANTI-SEX”. In the (sadly, haha
exTREMest CONTRARY is that so. ahA !!! AND Israel IS the MOST concerned country against ABUSE.
MOST of those Arab states OPPRESS women — but now, even LYBIA stands by with WEAPON support for DA LYBIAN FSA Rebellios — the west hopes and trembles: WHERE some of them AIN’T JIHAD and co: Is that so? no. Da ugly jihadis dress in BLACK silly sudo”holy” robes, and are CLEARLY NOT “FSA”.They CAN always masquerade. Of course. But now, we DO know !!!
Assad must go or make peace with those who ARE NOT jihad or hizbolla. He HAS supprt by hizbolla. 
– and is “anti-israel”. STOP IRANGOV !
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La Autoridad Palestina encierra la muerte de un nuevo prisionero « Unidos x Israel
3:20 pm
Mar 12, 2013
[...] del 5 de Marzo del 2013 Artículo traducido por ReporteHonesto de HonestReporting, escrito por Pesach Benson Si Ayman Samarah hubiese sido encontrado muerto en [...]
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