The Palestinian Authority admitted at the weekend that its security forces, funded and trained by the US and Europe, regularly employ torture against prisoners and detainees.
In an interview with British newspaper the Mail, Haitham Arar, head of the human rights department of the PA Interior Ministry, acknowledged that torture, beatings and assassinations were all common tools of the regime of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
Arar called those practices "a shame on the Palestinian Authority."
In related news, Saudi Arabia, before whose king US President Barack Obama bowed shortly after taking office, sentenced a female journalist to 60 lashes over the weekend for her role in interviewing a local man about his sex life.
The interview aired last summer. The man who was interviewed was sentenced earlier this month to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes.