Ramallah, 11 December 2011 – Addameer strongly condemns the death of Mustafa Tamimi, 28, who was struck in the head by a teargas canister fired at close range by an Israeli soldier during the weekly demonstration in Nabi Saleh on Friday. Protestors report that following the injury, soldiers mocked his family members and refused to allow his sister to see him before taking him to the hospital. A United Nations (UN) delegation, including Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression Frank La Rue, was present in the village at the time. Though Mustafa died at 10:15 on the morning of 10 December, Israeli authorities refused to return his body to his family until 22:00 due to observance of Shabbat.
Mustafa’s tragic death coincided with Human Rights Day, an international day of recognition of human rights issues declared by the UN on the anniversary of the approval of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The killing of protestors shows Israel’s blatant use of disproportionate force in response to peaceful demonstrations and a continuing trend to violate Palestinians’ right to life, right to self-determination, and right to freedom of expression. According to Palestinian grassroots campaign Stop the Wall, Mustafa is the 21st protestor killed during demonstrations against the Annexation Wall and settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Nabi Saleh’s peaceful demonstrations are in protest of the theft of the village’s Ein al-Qaws spring by the nearby Halamish settlement at the end of 2009. In addition to the brutal violence regularly employed against protestors, Israeli Occupying Forces also continue to arrest participants and leaders of the popular resistance movement on a weekly basis. The trial of protest organizer Bassem Tamimi is ongoing, though he has already been imprisoned for 9 months. In the past two years, over 80 protest-related arrests have occurred in the village of only 500 residents.
Israel’s violent repression and systematic targeting of residents of Nabi Saleh constitutes collective punishment of the village, a war crime under international law. Addameer calls on representatives of the international community to protect human rights defenders in the occupied Palestinian territory and to pressure Israel to immediately cease its campaign of collective punishment in Nabi Saleh.