Is the West Bank cracking down on free speech?
MP Najat Abu Bakr, who ended her two-week sit-in at parliament headquarters in Ramallah, spoke to Al-Monitor about corruption and freedoms in the West Bank.
RAMALLAH, West Bank — On March 10, Najat Abu Bakr, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in Ramallah, ended her two-week sit-in after she reached an agreement with member of parliament Azzam al-Ahmad, head of Fatah's parliamentary bloc in the PLC, under which Abu Bakr appeared before the public prosecutor.
Abu Bakr began a sit-in in the PLC following security forces’ attempts to arrest her Feb. 25 by virtue of an arrest warrant by the public prosecutor and after the public prosecution summoned her to appear before it on the count of charges subject to the Penal Code in the cases registered before the public prosecution office under numbers 722/2016 and 719/2016.
Abu Bakr said in press statements Feb. 24 that the court order is illegal given that she enjoys parliamentary privilege. She continued the sit-in at the PLC building until the arrest warrant was abolished. The arrest warrant came after Abu Bakr demanded Feb. 15 that decision-makers at the Palestinian Authority (PA) inquire about a minister, whom she did not name, who obtained 800,000 shekels ($205,655) for the implementation of a private project.
In response to her accusations, Minister of Local Governance Hussein al-Araj told the media Feb. 17 that “the accusations leveled by MP Abu Bakr against me are false and the said sum is also wrong.”
