text: Statement comes in response to the PA's ongoing security crackdown on Hamas supporters in the aftermath of the Islamist movement's victory in the Bir Zeit University elections last week.
  April 26, 2015 20:35
  The Islamic Bloc issued a statement in which it accused the PA security forces of torturing Salim and called for his immediate release.
  The Islamic Bloc said that the arrest of Salim shows that Fatah does not accept the results of the Bir Zeit University election.
  Fathi Qar'awi, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, predicted that the Bir Zeit election would be the last in the West Bank. He claimed that the PA leadership has decided to call off elections at all campuses to stop Hamas from winning.
  "Had the Palestinian Authority known that the Islamic Bloc would win, they would have used weapons to stop that," he said.
  Sources close to Hamas said that PA security forces have also summoned for interrogation a number of students who are affiliated with the Islamic Bloc in various parts of the West Bank.
  In a related development, Hamas supporters claimed that another West Bank university, An-Najah, has called off planned elections for its student council out of fear that the Islamic Bloc would win.
  They said that the administration of An-Najah University in Nablus decided to call off the elections under "false pretexts" for the third time in recent months.
  However, a spokesman for the university denied that the decision to call off the vote was related to the Hamas victory at Bir Zeit University. The spokesman blamed tensions between rival factions for the delay, adding that a special committee has been set up to study the issue.