Last update - 00:00 06/12/2007
Gaza rights groups: Hamas' seizure of legal system unlawful
By Reuters
Palestinian human rights groups on Thursday accused Hamas Islamists of undermining the rule of law in the Gaza Strip by seizing control of the legal system.
Representatives of four organizations said Hamas-appointed judges last month took control of Gaza's civilian court compound and ordered other judges to answer to a chief justice appointed by the Islamist group.
Hamas seized power in Gaza in a brief but bloody civil war in June after ousting rival forces of President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, which continues to hold sway in the West Bank.
Hamas appointed Abdel-Raouf al-Halabi chief justice in Gaza after the takeover, but had stopped short of enforcing his authority until the incident last month. Fatah deemed Halabi's appointment illegal and has kept on an Abbas-appointed chief justice of the Palestinian territories who is based in Ramallah.
The human rights groups said Hamas judges entered the court compound and told the deputy chief justice that all judges in the territory must now answer to Halabi.
"The organisations hold this government responsible for undermining and destroying the judicial authority," said Raji al-Surani, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.
It was some of the strongest criticism of Hamas inside the Gaza Strip since the group's June takeover.
The other judges and staff left the court compound and have since been on strike. A Gaza-based Fatah judge and Surani said the highest judicial council in the Palestinian territories, which answers to Abbas, had since suspended the civilian court system in Gaza.
"This will lead to a vacuum and will cause the collapse of the civil judiciary which will give way to the law of the jungle," he told a news conference in Gaza.
Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said Hamas was reacting to a previous order by Fatah to policemen and judges loyal to Abbas not to cooperate with Gaza's Hamas rulers.
He accused the rights bodies of siding with Fatah.
The four groups said they had failed to persuade senior Hamas officials to back down over the courts issue but that they would continue trying.
Abbas says open to Hamas talks only if it cedes control of Gaza
Meanwhile, Abbas said on Thursday he did not oppose dialogue with rival Hamas Islamists but reiterated the group must first relinquish control of the Gaza Strip.
Speaking a day after Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh renewed a call for reconciliation talks, Abbas said Hamas had tried to "sabotage" the Palestinian struggle for an independent state when it violently seized control of Gaza in June.
"We also say that we are not against dialogue because we want to unite all the Palestinian people," Abbas told a group of Palestinian students at his office in Ramallah. "But [Hamas] must first reverse its coup so that we can have a dialogue."
The Islamist group routed Abbas's secular Fatah faction in Gaza, prompting Abbas to sack a Hamas-led government and agree to U.S.-sponsored peace talks with Israel.
Hamas, shunned by Israel and the West for refusing to renounce violence, has since called for dialogue with Fatah but has refused to give up control of Gaza as a prerequisite for talks.
Abbas, who holds sway in the larger West Bank, said Arab countries are trying to mediate between the factions.
Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last week launched the first formal
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in seven years and agreed at a U.S.-hosted conference to try and agree on creating a Palestinian state by the end of 2008.
Palestinian negotiators want an independent state in Gaza and the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital, but Hamas's control of the coastal enclave could complicate talks.
Hamas, which claims a Palestinian right to all land that is now Israel, has rejected the peace push and has vowed to continue its fight against Israel.
Since the conference, Israel has increased raids on Gaza to try to curb rocket fire from militants and has killed more than two dozen Palestinians.
Haniyeh on Wednesday called for non-conditional dialogue with Fatah to "heal the Palestinian wounds" and described the conference in Annapolis as a "cover" for Israeli aggression.
Abbas, who, like Olmert, is politically weak, said on Thursday that last month's conference convened by U.S. President George W. Bush was "difficult".
He said he rejected an Israeli proposal at Annapolis for a Palestinian state with provisional borders in return for recognising Israel as a Jewish state.
Skeptics doubt the two sides will manage to broker an agreement within a year, given major differences over core issues such as Jerusalem, borders, the fate of thousands of Palestinian refugees and Jewish settlements.
An Israeli official said Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense
Minister Ehud Barak were due to meet on Thursday to prepare for the next round of talks with Palestinian negotiators which are due to take place on Dec. 12.
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