(IPS) feature The Palestine Authority (PA) under President Yasser Arafat commits serious human right abuses and systematically undermines the independence of its judiciary, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said last Friday.

Prisoners - especially those suspected of collaborating with Israel - often are subject to torture during interrogations and then convicted on the basis of their confessions, the report says. At the same time, commanders of at least 10 different security forces operating in the occupied territories routinely ignore judicial orders to release people found to have been detained arbitrarily.

The PA is holding about 450 people without charge or trial, according to the report, which says most of them are suspected of being informants for Israel or of having sold Palestinian land to Israelis.

Late October, under US and Israeli pressure, the PA issued six-month-long detention orders on seven alleged members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. But administrative detention orders, according to HRW, will only further weaken the Palestinian justice system and due-process rights of Palestinians.

''The Palestinian Authority wants to be treated as an equal with other governments,'' said HRW Executive Director Kenneth Roth. ''President Arafat must ensure that the PA has a functioning judicial system which operates to protect the human rights of all Palestinians.''

The report's release comes at a key moment in the 14-month conflict, known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada or Intifada II , between Palestinians and Israelis in which more than 500 Palestinians have lost their lives.

Continual violence

The administration of President George W Bush, which wants to reduce the violence while it carries out its ''war against terrorism'' in Afghanistan, has just sent two senior envoys to try to work out a cease-fire between the two sides that would permit them to resume long-suspended peace talks. Since their arrival last weekend, however, violence has continued, with deaths reported on both sides.

Israel has maintained that the PA should arrest and prosecute Palestinians responsible for attacks against Israelis. Failure to do so, according to the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, shows that Arafat is not interested in forging a real peace with Israel.

Arafat, on the other hand, has insisted that Israel itself - by maintaining tight controls, using lethal force against civilians, and carrying out targeted killings - has provoked the violence, making his efforts to impose law and order in the occupied territories far more difficult.

The HRW report, entitled ''Justice undermined: balancing security and human rights in the Palestinian justice system,'' provides ammunition for both sides.

Echoing Israeli charges, the report notes that the PA released most Hamas and Islamic Jihad members it had in its custody after the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000. While some have been re-arrested from time to time during the past year's violence, they generally have been held only briefly before being released again.

''If the PA has evidence that any past or present detainees or others have committed violent offences against Israeli or other civilians, it should bring them to justice for these acts in accordance with international fair trial standards,'' according to the report, which denounces what it calls a ''revolving door policy.''

At the same time, it notes that Israel's responses to the current uprising - including closures, blockades, and harassment of Palestinian human rights lawyers - has largely disrupted the functioning of the PA's judicial system, weak as it is. Moreover, Israeli attacks on Palestinian police installations and detention centres have compromised the PA's ability to maintain law and order.

Finally, Israel's policy of ''liquidations'' of suspected Palestinian terrorists has fostered the conviction within the occupied territories that Israel's security forces are relying on Palestinian informants.

''This sense of an 'enemy within' has split communities and families and spread fear and suspicion,'' says the report, which notes that some 30 vigilante-style executions of suspected Palestinian collaborators have been carried out during the past year. While Arafat and the PA have condemned these, investigations have been cursory and not a single perpetrator has faced prosecution.

Five deaths

The report's main focus, however, is on the PA's own failures to build a functioning and fair criminal justice system.

Detainees, according to the report, are commonly arrested without a warrant and can spend months in jail without charges or trial. In some cases they are not allowed access to lawyers during interrogation.

They are frequently subjected to various forms of torture. These include prolonged sitting or standing in painful positions - a practice also used by Israeli security and recently denounced as torture by Amnesty International, beating on the soles of the feet, punching and kicking, and suspension from the wrists.

Five Palestinians are known to have died in police or security force custody over the past 14 months.

The report also assailed Arafat's establishment in 1995, of a State Security Court displacing ordinary civilian courts. The court, which is convened by the president on a case-by-case basis, has tried 16 cases since the start of the current uprising; 15 of these have ended in convictions and 11 with death sentences. Two executions have been carried out.

Trials by the court have lasted only a few hours with most defendants - who have been represented by members of the security forces rather than practicing attorneys - convicted solely or mainly on the basis of confessions made while in isolated detention.

These trials are ''inherently and grossly unfair,'' HRW charges. It calls on Arafat to abolish the court and ratify pending legislation that would ensure the independence and authority of the ordinary judicial system.