Palestinians deny detention of human rights activist

Official Palestinian sources negated yesterday that Palestinian security forces detained Eyad al-Sarraj, a human rights activist in the Gaza Strip.

A source in the Palestinian police said al-Sarraj was summoned on August 5 to police headquarters, adding that he was not detained or investigated.

Al-Sarraj, a professor of psychiatry, was detained more than once at the beginning of the Palestinian government's establishment for his opposition to detaining citizens without trial and his demands for maintaining all human rights. He headed an independent front for human rights in Palestine.

His family informed the mass media on Thursday that the police had detained him, but later the family confirmed his return home and that he had been questioned for an hour about articles he published in a Palestinian newspaper recently, after which he came back home.