At best, the Palestinian NGO ‘Al Haq‘ is just one of many political organisations abusing the halo of the title ‘human rights’ in order to make its anti-Israel campaigning more palatable in the West. At worst, it has a much more sinister side.
At the beginning of February 2013, Al Haq director Shawan Jabarin visited France and whilst there, gave an interview to a French television station.
“Jabarin claimed that members of the French Parliament had promised him they would relay the matter of administrative detentions to the French foreign minister so that he could exert pressure on Israel to cancel the policy of administrative detentions and to release the imprisoned Hamas activists of the Palestinian Legislative Council.”
It therefore comes as no surprise to find that Al Haq, together with another political NGO – Addameer – took the trouble to translate into English the decidedly strange autopsy report on Arafat Jaradat produced by Dr Saber al Aloul of the Palestinian Medico-legal Institute.
Assuming that the translation (which can be seen here) is accurate, one may at first glance wonder if Dr al Aloul is angling for a part in ‘Silent Witness’ or ‘CSI’. Not for him the usual accepted terminology of an autopsy’s findings being “consistent with” this or that. No, this super-pathologist has eliminated the need for lab tests, a police investigation, a court and a judge. He has the whole case solved in the blink of an eye, with time left over for commercials.
“All bruises (injuries) are very recent and strong resulting from direct intensive torture”
“THE REASON OF DEATH: nervous shock as a result of extreme pain from the intensity of the injuries described above, which resulted from multiple direct and extensive acts of torture.”
Dr al Aloul’s Israeli counterparts who took part in the same autopsy are apparently nowhere near as efficient.
“It was found that the hemorrhages and fractured ribs found during the autopsy occurred close to death and are characteristic of the resuscitation attempts that were performed on the deceased by Prison Service and MDA medical staff for 50 minutes in an effort to save his life.
No signs of other contusions were found. The toxicology tests were also negative.
There were no signs of significant change due to illness in other organs that could indicate cause of death; therefore, further tests to determine the cause will be performed.”
However, the Israeli doctors are not hurried along by the catalyst of a Palestinian Authority minister of prisoner affairs who had already pronounced that Jaradat had been “killed during the investigation” only hours after his death. Neither are they faculty members at a Palestinian university which boasts a “museum for prisoner affairs” named after one of the architects of the Munich Olympic massacre.
Informed observers would of course take the combination of a politically motivated autopsy report and a convenient English translation provided by an NGO with a long history of delegitimisation of Israel with several pinches of salt.
Not so the BBC Jerusalem Bureau’s Jon Donnison, who saw fit to promote the Al Haq translated report on Twitter.
But hey; what is this? A mere day after Donnison kindly took care of promoting that particular chapter of PA propaganda, the PA ministry of prisoner affairs has changed its story.
“The Palestinian Authority claimed Saturday that Arafat Jaradat, the 30-year-old Palestinian who died in Megiddo Prison last week, was killed by Palestinian “collaborators.”
The PA Prisoners Affairs Ministry said that Jaradat died two days after being transferred to a cell where “collaborators” were being held.”
It looks as though we will have to wait for the rest of the tests and lab results after all.
It’s a thankless job being a voluntary PA mouthpiece, isn’t it Jon?
Related posts:
BBC’s Jon Donnison Tweets unverified information again
BBC idea of ‘balance’: presenting fact and fiction on an equal footing
BBC helping along Palestinian incitement
