RAMALLAH: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has issued a decree overturning a system of payments to the families of Palestinians imprisoned or killed by Israeli forces that has been a longstanding source of friction with the United States.
The current system has been dubbed “pay for slay” by critics who say it rewards the families of militants who carry out attacks on Israel, although that label is rejected by Palestinians.
Payments will be transferred to a government body affiliated with the president’s office, according to the text of the decree, with a new disbursement mechanism, details of which have so far not been announced.
Scrapping the system has been a major demand of successive US administrations on the Palestinian Authority, the body set up three decades ago under the Oslo interim peace accords which exercises limited governance in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The decision comes as the Palestinian Authority faces mounting financial pressure from a slowdown in aid, a squeeze on a system of tax revenue transfers by Israel and a slump in contributions from Palestinians who have been shut out of the Israeli labor market by the war in Gaza.
Israel has been deducting the payments made by the authority from taxes collected on its behalf from goods that cross its territory to Palestinian areas.
The Palestinian Authority has appealed for more aid from Arab and European states to make up for the shortfall of billions of shekels but has so far struggled to make headway.
Palestinian president scraps prisoner payment system criticized by US
https://arab.news/jqwkt
Palestinian president scraps prisoner payment system criticized by US
- Move was a response to a long-standing request from Washington
Two Tunisia columnists handed over three years in prison
- Mourad Zeghidi and Borhen Bsaies have already been in detention for almost two years
- They were due to be released in January 2025 but have remained in custody on charges of money laundering
TUNIS: Two prominent Tunisian columnists were sentenced on Thursday to three and a half years in prison each for money laundering and tax evasion, according to a relative and local media.
The two men, Mourad Zeghidi and Borhen Bsaies, have already been in detention for almost two years for statements considered critical of President Kais Saied’s government, made on radio, television programs and social media.
They were due to be released in January 2025 but have remained in custody on charges of money laundering and tax evasion.
“Three and a half years for Mourad and Borhen,” Zeghidi’s sister, Meriem Zeghidi Adda, wrote on Facebook on Thursday.
Since Saied’s power grab, which granted him sweeping powers on July 25, 2021, local and international NGOs have denounced a regression of rights and freedoms in Tunisia.
Dozens of opposition figures and civil society activists are being prosecuted under a presidential decree officially aimed at combatting “fake news” but subject to a very broad interpretation denounced by human rights defenders.
Others, including opposition leaders, have been sentenced to heavy prison terms in a mega-trial of “conspiracy against state security.”
In 2025, Tunisia fell 11 places in media watchdog Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) World Press Freedom Index, dropping from 118th to 129th out of 180 countries.
