Palestinian Police Undergo Human Rights Training To Curb Brutality They Learned in Israeli Prisons

By Maureen Meehan

The staff at the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, a one-of-a-kind center that treats illnesses ranging from post-traumatic stress of former political prisoners to traumatized women and children affected by domestic violence, has its hands full.

Founded in April 1990 by Dr. Eyad El-Sarraj, the GCMHP is now undertaking one of its most challenging tasks: to break the vicious cycle of violence that grips the lives of many of the two million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

During the intifada, over 100,000 Palestinians were jailed and thousands have been arrested and imprisoned since then. It has been widely documented by international, Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups that fully 90 percent of Palestinians arrested by Israeli security forces were, and still are, systematically tortured during interrogation.

The recent Israeli Supreme Court decision to ban certain commonly used torture methods such as “shaking,” shackling to small chairs and sleep deprivation was hailed by human rights activists and lawyers as a small victory in a long battle.

As a result of what mental health professionals call “identification with the aggressor,” it is becoming increasingly common for Palestinian security forces to use the same brutal interrogation techniques once used on them, explains Dr. El-Sarraj, who is the director general of the GCMHP.

“People can grow through a painful experience like jail; some Palestinians became heroes, others leaders,” he said, “but at least one-third suffered from psychological disorders after their release…many joined the Palestinian security services and now use what they ‘learned’ in Israeli jails.”

Dr. El-Sarraj, arrested by the Palestinian security forces three times within six months in 1995-96 and again early this summer for criticizing human rights violations under the Palestinian National Authority, experienced the phenomenon firsthand. El-Sarraj cited a disturbing example: “When I was in jail, there was an officer nearby who was so angry at someone. He worked himself up into a frenzy, then began to shout in Hebrew. It was chilling.”

In addition to their work in the community, the GCMHP has begun to reach out to the Palestinian security services and police in Gaza to offer them courses on human rights, legal procedures, interrogation, search and arrest and local laws.

So far, the civil police have been the only takers. The security forces, which largely deal with perceived political offenses, opposition to the PNA and the currently defunct peace accords, have shown little interest in accepting criticism or changing their ways.

El-Sarraj believes the lack of interest on the part of the security forces is a cultural and political problem based on the fact that they are part of the power structure that spent many years living on what he calls the “margins of society.”

“They spent years living secretly, underground, and adapted methods and tactics that were illegal or even criminal which were always justified, and accepted, as part of the struggle to liberate Palestine. Critics from within were eliminated or split and formed other groups,” he said. “They themselves were brutalized and traumatized and never had rights.

“Now that they’re back here, officials in the [Palestinian] leadership continue to operate outside the law although they no longer have the moral authority of the ‘Palestinian cause’ to justify their behavior,” he said. “It was that moral authority that held us all together, protected us, protected the refugees and gave them hope and dignity. Now, because of human rights violations and abuse of power under the PNA, we’ve lost that moral high ground and these abuses cannot be justified.”

Ahmad Abu Tawahina, deputy director and co-founder of the GCMHP, explained how his organization convinced the chief of the civil police to allow his officers to attend the human rights and law enforcement training courses.

“We started out by holding public meetings, with the idea that we should approach this problem as a community and not in a confrontational manner. We needed first to encourage people to talk and get in touch with their feelings before we broached the subject,” said Abu Tawahina, a psychotherapist trained in Egypt.

“We were later invited by the Preventive Security Service to visit prisoners whom they thought needed our help. We visited the prisoners, who were obviously broken. We soon realized that they [the prisoners] were beginning to view us as part of the prison system,” explained Abu Tawahina. “So we asked the PSS to release the prisoners who needed help in order to better treat them, but they refused.”

That was the closest the GCMHP professionals came to having contact with security prisoners or the security forces in Gaza, although Abu Tawahina said some of the prison guards and interrogators told him secretly that they, too, were suffering under the new system that required them to behave in ways they felt were unconscionable.

Despite that, the chief of the civil police has been cooperative and has allowed prison guards and policemen to attend group therapy sessions and training courses. Abu Tawahina, who is one of the trainers, said it didn’t take long for results to be seen.

“Shortly after the fourth lecture, one of the older guys raised his hand and began to talk about himself; how he had spent 13 years in an Israeli prison and was tortured, how he had been deported and how it had affected him. It was truly courageous and it later helped some of the younger fellows to open up.”

Abu Tawahina said getting their foot in the door with at least one branch of the many PNA security forces is an achievement in itself. He said he could only hope that when people begin to understand the deeply unconscious psychology of victimization and acknowledge their own suffering and trauma caused by prison, torture or exile, there will be a better chance of curbing police brutality, which is pushing Palestinian society into a dangerous dilemma.

“Once these people feel they can acknowledge their own suffering and humiliation caused by torture and imprisonment, it might enable them to have a normal response to what was an abnormal experience,” said Abu Tawahina.

In the West Bank town of Ramallah, Ahmed Sayyad, general director of the Ramallah-based Mandela Institute, told the Washington Report that his human rights organization has had a bit more luck in penetrating the security services that deal with “political offenders.” There are some 300 political prisoners in Palestinian jails, many of whom are being held without charge or trial.

Mr. Sayyad, an attorney, agrees that the former revolutionary soldier status of many of the current Palestinian officials has rendered them lacking in knowledge of civil law and its vital importance in society.

Three years ago, the Mandela Institute initiated a series of training sessions for security forces in areas such as international and local law and law enforcement, search and seizure, interrogation, and human rights. So far, the institute has already run 37 courses that have been taken by nearly 1,000 members of the Palestinian security services.

Attorneys, psychologists and human rights experts teach the basic course, which is divided up into three topics and requires 108 class-hours to complete. Between 20 and 25 people attend each course. Basic handbooks printed up to accompany the lectures have been handed out among the commanders and distributed to others who are not enrolled in the course.

Like Mr. Abu Tawahina, Sayyad and his colleagues consider the courses to be successful partially because they have been quietly functioning during these past three years and because a small number of people who admit to using abusive techniques are beginning to recognize there is no justification for such behavior.

“Several men have complained to us that they are being asked to do things that we have discussed in the course as unacceptable under any circumstance,” said Sayyad, “and that is a positive sign.

“We are also developing a good relationship with some of the interrogators [where the vast majority of torture occurs], and they are beginning to understand basic principles about human rights.

“Sure, we still have many who justify what they do by saying a certain person under interrogation is a collaborator, but we explain that the person is still a human being and has rights,” said Sayyad. “But the biggest problem we face both here and in Gaza are the commanders who hand down orders to get information from people, especially in the case of ‘security’ prisoners.

“The Palestinian commanders are under pressure from Israel to ‘protect’ the peace agreement, which actually encourages human rights violations. The Israelis are pressuring the Palestinians to repress all opposition to the peace accords while they themselves enforce collective punishment on Palestinian civilians through closure [of the West Bank and Gaza],” said Sayyad.

Dr. El-Sarraj believes that the cycle of violence and fear—beginning with the Ottoman Empire, the British, the Israelis and now the PNA—has produced a nation of intimidated people and that it will take at least a full generation to change that.

“It is a generational game and we need to get through the current layers of leaders,” he said. “We need wise courageous leaders who will produce examples of reconciliation, vision and tolerance; leadership that believes in the rule of law. But in the meantime we are sitting on a mixture of dynamite and we can only hope education and training will start people thinking.”

Maureen Meehan is an American free-lance journalist based in the West Bank.