M I D - E A S T  R E A L I T I E S - FEATURE ARTICLE OF THE WEEK

As Palestinian human-rights activist Bassam Eid prepared to launch the first monthly report of his new Palestinian Human-Rights Monitoring Group on January 1, he was already predicting trouble from Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority.

Planning to distribute the information sheet at all schools and universities in the West Bank and Gaza, Eid told The Jerusalem Report he expected the PA to move to ban his material from places of learning -- "just as they recently banned (Palestinian-American intellectual) Edward Said's writings against the Oslo process."

Where a recent Amnesty International survey highlighted torture under Yasser Arafat's rule, and cited 10 cases of prisoners dying in detention, Eid's first report will focus on abuses of freedom of speech. It will highlight the case of Imad Abu Zahra, editor of a biweekly paper in the Jenin area which was ordered closed by the Palestinian police in October following publication of its fifth edition. After detaining him for several hours, Jenin police told Abu Zahra that he was operating illegally, since he did not have a police license to publish.

Abu Zahra showed The Report a valid license for his paper issued by the PA's Ministry of Information. And Eid points out that the Palestinians' own press law does not require a publisher to get police permission. "This is editing a newspaper, not running a nightclub," Eid says.

In his first report, Eid will also provide data on other Palestinian journalists who have been harassed or detained by the PA. Eid who worked until recently for the Israeli human-rights group B'Tselem, argues that the silence of other Palestinian human-rights organizations on such matters proves the need for his new group, which will be funded by the Norwegian Human-Rights Fund and other foreign grants.

Eid holds an Israeli ID as a resident of Jerusalem's Shuafat refugee camp, and has established his headquarters in East Jerusalem -- facts that might afford him a little more freedom to maneuver than activists based in the West Bank and Gaza. Nevertheless, he was briefly taken into detention by Palestinian security officials earlier this year.

He says he is hoping to set up a human-rights lobby in the 88-seat Palestinian Legislative Council, but he has received only three replies to the 15 letters he sent to selected members.