Haneya calls on Israel to immediately release Parliament Speaker

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haneya called on Tuesday for the immediate release of Aziz Dweik, speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), who was arrested by Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Saturday.

Dweik, 58, was transferred to an Israeli hospital in Jerusalem on Monday night after he was beaten by Israeli interrogators, Palestinian officials affirmed.

The Israeli army, which was holding him, denied the allegation that the speaker had been beaten by its soldiers.

Ghazi Hamad, spokesman of the Hamas-led government, said that torturing Dweik was a ring of a long series of torture approved by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people and their leadership.

Palestinian Minister of Prisoner Affairs Wasfi Kabha said that the Israeli torture against the PLC speaker was the highest level of Israeli sadism.

Israeli medical sources in Sha'reh Tsedek Hospital in Jerusalem reported that Dweik was suffering from bruises in his face and chest, and he was lying handcuffed and tightly watched.

Israel said he was detained for being a member of Hamas, which Israel regards as a terrorist organization, and had been taken to an Israeli military prison after being arrested from his home in Ramallah.

Israeli forces have twice surrounded the speaker's house but failed to arrest him since June 29 when Israeli troops rounded up dozens of Hamas officials, including eight cabinet ministers, said the reports.

Dweik, a professor at al-Najjah University, was elected as the PLC lawmaker on Jan. 25, when his Hamas movement achieved an overwhelming victory in the parliamentary elections, in which Hamas won 74 seats out of 132 that the PLC consists of.

He was chosen later by Hamas movement leadership to be the speaker of the parliament and was sworn in in mid-March.

Source: Xinhua