Palestinian Authority’s standing slides amid growing frustration

A protest movement against Palestinian Authority corruption and authoritarianism gains momentum in occupied West Bank.

Ramallah, Occupied West Bank – Months before Ghassan’s sixth birthday, he already had his party all planned out; he wanted a policeman costume and a cake shaped like a police cap. That is until a month ago, when his idolisation of the police was shattered. On July 5, Ghassan’s mother, Hind Shraydeh, went to the police station in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah to demand the release of her husband, who had been detained along with several other activists by Palestinian security forces before a planned demonstration against the Palestinian Authority (PA) earlier that day. The police said the activists had been arrested because the protest did not have a permit. Shraydeh’s impromptu protest grew to a dozen family members and activists after she posted a Facebook video chanting “state of freedoms, no to political arrests”. But it did not last long.