Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders Annual Report 2002 - Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Investigation and defamation campaign against Adalah³⁰

On 11th August 2002, Adalah, the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (an NGO registered in 1996) learned from the Israeli media that the Centre was about to be subjected to an official investigation for activities that exceeded its mandate, affiliation with a political party and poor financial management. Adalah was notified of this decision on 23rd August in a letter dated 18th August 2002 from the Registrar of Associations of the Ministry of the Interior, indicating that an investigator had been appointed. This enquiry seems to be linked to Adalah's efforts to use judicial means to denounce the restriction of the civil, political, economic and social rights of Israel's Arab citizens. The organisation, moreover, is working on important judicial affairs that affect the rights of the Arab community in Israel.

On 5th September Adalah sent an appeal to the decision to Eli Yishai, Minister of the Interior. No reply has been received yet.

The announcement of this decision was accompanied by an especially violent defamation campaign in certain Israeli media. On 13th August, the Jerusalem Post called Adalah "one of the most active and most effective Arab NGOs, organisations that are responsible for the 'extremist tendencies' among the Arab Israelis". The newspaper also linked Adalah to recent acts of terrorism, and accused the organisation "through its work at the United Nations", of "trying to obtain recognition of extraordinary rights – not equal rights – for Arab Israelis". On 29th August similar attacks were launched against Adalah in Yediot Ahronot and Ma'ariv newspapers.

Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

The work of NGOs operating in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs) has continued to be greatly affected by the ongoing human rights violations of the Israeli authorities and made even more difficult by the many restrictions imposed on all Palestinian civilians.

Restriction to freedom of movement

One of the greatest obstacles to the work of human rights defenders, which has intensified in 2002, is the closure policy imposed by the Israeli authorities (checkpoints and curfews within the OPTs, checkpoints separating Israel from the OPTs). For instance, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), based in the Gaza strip, is particularly affected by the Abu Houli checkpoint, which separates the Northern part of the Strip from the Southern part, and creates a separation between its offices in Gaza and in Khan Younis, making the members of the offices disjointed and increasing the complexity of their already complicated work.

Fieldworkers and lawyers have been impeded to travel to areas where human rights violations have occurred, in order to witness the aftermath, interview victims and witnesses, take photographs and record all the necessary details to help the documentation of the violations. In addition the victims and witnesses of such violations have been unable to travel to the human rights organizations in order to seek advice from a lawyer or simply to give statements and evidence concerning their cases.

This situation was flagrant in April 2002, when, after a vast military operation by the Israeli army in a large part of the OPTs, the activities of Palestinian and Israeli human rights NGOs were impeded more than ever.³¹ Defenders were refused access to certain zones like Jenin, Bethlehem, Naplouse and other regions in the Occupied Territories because they were dubbed "closed military zones", although there was no security reason to prevent access. An example: B'Tselem (Israeli Information Centre on Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) members had to clear out of Jenin and Ramallah when military operations started there. And because of the curfew, they were unable to move around in Bethlehem and Naplouse. On 17th April, members of a delegation composed of several lawyers who belong to the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment (LAW) and to international NGOs (e.g. Amnesty International, Lawyers Without Borders) spent several hours arguing with the Israeli forces to get permission to go to a hospital in Jenin. On 19th April, the Israeli army prevented the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT) from going to Gaza and the West Bank to help people who had been tortured or traumatised. Further, members of Israeli human rights associations such as B'Tselem were not allowed to return to Israeli Territory to go to the headquarters of their organisation, despite repeated official requests to the Israeli authorities. For most of them, the ban was lifted afterward.

Lawyers are also particularly affected by those restrictions to freedom of movement. For example, PCHR lawyers have not been permitted to cross the Erez crossing, which connects the Gaza Strip to Israel and have been therefore unable to represent PCHR's clients in Israeli courts nor to visit their clients in Israeli prisons. The only way PCHR can deal with this is to employ Israeli lawyers to represent PCHR clients, which is extremely costly and time-consuming and so limits the number of cases that PCHR can take on. PCHR lawyers also have had some problems traveling freely within the Gaza Strip and have often been unable to visit clients in the South of the Gaza Strip or to areas in the Northern Gaza Strip, such as Beit Lahiya. This has of course consequences on the rights of the detainees, whose access to a lawyer of their choice has been dramatically restricted and the likelihood of a fair trial has been reduced.

Moreover, human rights organizations working in the OPTs are often very isolated. In particular, human rights defenders face difficulties to promote their work abroad. For instance, Mr. Raji Sourani, director of the PCHR, was denied a permit to reach Ben Gourion airport to travel to Austria in order to receive the Bruno Kreisky Human Rights Prize, of which he was a joint recipient. He was also prevented from going to attend the Dublin Platform for Human Rights Defenders organised by Frontline in January 2002, along with the deputy director of PCHR, Jaber Wishah. In June, Iyad al-Alami and Hamdi Shaqqura, two PCHR members, were unable to go to the General Assembly of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network in Athens since they were not allowed to leave the Gaza Strip. The requests made by the organizers to the Israeli Foreign Ministry remained most of all unanswered.

Obstacles to defense lawyers

In addition to the obstacles put to their freedom of movement, Palestinian lawyers also deal with many problems on a practical basis linked to the deficiencies of the Palestinian legal system, which is at present very difficult to improve due to Israeli policies (closure policy, extra-judicial aspects of the Israeli system concerning Palestinians, lack of co-ordination between the Israeli and the Palestinian authorities and the continued interference of the Israeli authorities in the work of the Palestinian legal system). Moreover, they face great difficulty visiting their clients in Gaza prisons due to prolonged military bombardment of Palestinian security facilities since two years, which has lead to the lack of security of Palestinian prisons and as the result of the aerial bombing of such places. As a consequence, prisoners are no longer kept in one facility, but moved around from one place to another. Consequently, PCHR lawyers have been unable to visit or contact their clients very easily, as their whereabouts is often not known due to the fact that their location is frequently changed. PCHR lawyers have forwarded many requests to the Palestinian authorities to arrange to see their clients. Most of these requests remained unanswered.

Material destruction

During the events in April, in an attempt to prevent NGOs from monitoring the serious human rights violations in the OPTs, the offices of several NGOs (e.g. Addameer, Al Haq, Shaml, LAW, Mattin Group), were wrecked and their equipment was destroyed or seriously damaged by Israeli militaries. In the field, the army ruined the camera of a member of B'Tselem who was filming soldiers as they ransacked a shop.³²

Harassment upon international staff

Finally, there has been an increasing trend of international staff of NGOs facing suspicion by the Israeli authorities, especially when travelling from the airport (undue delays, unnecessarily harsh questioning and unreasonable harassment). During the summer of 2002, the PCHR had two international staff members stopped at the Ben-Gurion airport and then deported, in two separate incidents. No reasons were given for these deportations and those involved were treated unfairly. It means that it is more and more difficult for human rights organizations to recruit international staff.

Attack against the domicile of Mr. Khader Shkirat³³

On 7th March 2002, some 150 Israeli soldiers, including the special Israeli Corps of the Intelligence Service and the borders guards, surrounded Jabel Mukaber, a Palestinian area in East Jerusalem. They imposed a curfew and closed in on the home of Mr. Khader Shkirat, Director of LAW. Intelligence Service officers asked Mr. Shkirat to bring out a refugee who was "hidden" in his house or leave his house, with his family, so that his house could be blown up. Since Mr. Shkirat refused, the Israeli forces summoned him to accompany them for questioning. Mr. Shkirat finally agreed to come out with his family and was taken to the Jabel Mukaber police station. During the interrogation, the Israeli forces said they found a refugee in his house. None of the representatives of the Israeli or Palestinian organisations, nor the international community who, at the request of LAW, went to the house, saw any so-called hidden refugee immerge. Shortly thereafter Mr. Shkirat and his brother, together with an Israeli lawyer, were taken away for further questioning. Both of them were released. One-and-a-half hours after all the observers had left the area, the Israeli forces came back and surrounded the house again, preventing anyone from entering it. They left early in the morning.

[Refworld note: This report as posted on the FIDH website (www.fidh.org) was in pdf format with country chapters run together by region. Footnote numbers have been retained here, so do not necessarily begin at 1.]

30. See Open letter to the Israeli authorities, dated 20 August 2002, co-authored with eight international human rights NGOs.

31. See Urgent Appeal ISR 001/0402/OBS 027.

32. Idem.

33. See Open letter to the Israeli authorities dated 8 March 2002.