Arrests of Hamas Officials Cloud Palestinian Unity Talks

	(TML)
	June 5, 2011

As the Hamas and Fatah movements work to put together a national unity cabinet, ending four years of acrimony, talks are being clouded by what Hamas says is an unremitting campaign by the Palestinian Authority (PA) of arrests and harassment in the West Bank.

Officials of the Islamic movement that controls the Gaza Strip accuse the Fatah-dominated PA, which rules in the West Bank, of breeching the reconciliation agreement signed between Fatah and Hamas in Cairo one month ago.

“Not only have no political prisoners been released until now, but more are being arrested and summoned for questioning all the time,” Hamed Al-Betawi, a Hamas member of parliament from the West Bank city of Nablus, told The Media Line.