Defend the Human Rights Defenders: How Long Will it Take for the International Community to Meet their Obligations to Palestinian Activists Against the Wall?

 

For Palestinian human rights defenders active against the Wall, Israeli intimidation efforts are pervasive: Israeli military orders ban all political activity and demonstrations in the OPT, whether peaceful or not. Palestinians who exercise their fundamental human rights to expression and peaceful assembly and take part in the demonstrations anyway are harassed, threatened, arrested, detained, and prevented from travelling abroad to speak about their resistance efforts, or are harassed even more upon their return. Those who are charged with offenses in the Israeli military courts face almost certain conviction and imprisonment by a military justice system that is heavily biased against them; those who are not charged nonetheless may be levied with administrative detention – indefinite detention without charge or trial – large fines and bans from participating in demonstrations of any kind, and are frequently subjected to increased threats and harassment by Israeli forces, both individually and with their community.

 

Today, the more than 1,650 wide-ranging military orders that govern the West Bank, and the military courts that enforce them, criminalize political activities that form the very foundation of Palestinian civil society. Putting up political posters, writing political slogans on a wall, belonging to any political party or certain organizations listed in military orders, displaying political symbols and attending a demonstration of virtually any kind are all activities that are classified as offenses under military orders and prosecuted as crimes that “endanger the security” of Israel. The offense of “threatening the security of the state” is an umbrella charge that can include socializing with an individual who has been classified as a security threat, even after that individual’s alleged activities were completed.

 

In cases documented by Addameer, Palestinian human rights defenders who are charged in relation to their involvement in demonstrations against the Wall are often levied with numerous charges that, upon closer inspection, bear little resemblance to an independent and impartial justice system at work.

 

This is exemplified in the cases of Bil’in Popular Committee Coordinator Abdallah Abu Rahma, charged with possession of arms after picking up bullets and gas canisters utilized by Israeli forces against his village and displaying them in the village museum, and Mohammad Zawahre, who was charged with attacking Israeli soldiers, when, in fact, there is video evidence that shows it was he who was beaten during and after his arrest amidst a peaceful anti-Wall protest in Al-Ma’sara. Other charges often levied against Wall protestors include entering closed military areas, participating in demonstrations and encouraging others to do so, and incitement.

 

The practical effect of the military orders and charges brought before the military courts is intimidation of Palestinians resident in the occupied Palestinian territory against the enjoyment of fundamental human rights, in particular to the protections granted to human rights defenders and to freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly. The constant threat engendered by the Israeli military justice system is reinforced by tactics utilized by Israeli forces and continue even after human rights defenders are released from Israeli detention.

 

Addameer has documented the cases of more than 350 Palestinians who were arrested by the Israeli Occupying Forces in relation to Wall-related protests and activities in 16 West Bank villages since 2002. At present, Addameer estimates that there are approximately 100 Palestinian human rights defenders from a number of West Bank villages including Ni’lin, Bil’in, Al-Ma’sara, Beit Duqqu, Jayyus, Budrus, Nabi Saleh, Hossan and Tulkarem.

 

In addition to arrest and detention, popular resistance by Palestinians to the Annexation Wall is met by Israeli forces with a variety of measures, all of which are aimed at sowing divisions within communities and breaking villages’ support for sustained human rights-based opposition activities. These measures include collective punishment, in the form of curfews, sieges, and destruction of property, threats to individuals and the community as a whole, beatings, the use of lethal and “non-lethal” ammunition, including 40mm high velocity tear gas canisters, denial of permits, tear-gassing, sending the army into villages to scare the local population and intentional injury and killings.

 

Addameer calls upon the international community, including diplomatic missions in the occupied Palestinian territory and the International Committee of the Red Cross to intervene with Israel to demand:

For more information about Israeli arrest and detention of Palestinian human rights defenders and Addameer and Stop the Wall’s Right to Stop the Wall Campaign, please visit our campaign website www.Right2StoptheWall.org, or contact us directly:

 

Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
P. O. Box: 17338, Jerusalem
Tel: +972 (0)2 296 0446 / 297 0136
Fax: +972 (0)2 296 0447
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.addameer.info