Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders Annual Report 2004 - Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Situation in Israel

Legal proceedings, detention and release of conscientious objectors opposed to the occupation of the Palestinian Territories

Release and ongoing trial of Mr. Jonathan Ben Artzi⁴⁸

Mr. Jonathan Ben Artzi, a pacifist student who had been detained in military prison No. 4 since 8 August 2002, appeared before the military court in Jaffa on 11 March 2003 for refusing to serve in the Israeli armed forces. His lawyers then lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court, arguing that the refusal to serve in the army could not be tried by a court martial for disobeying a military order. However, on 15 April 2003, the Supreme Court dismissed this argument and maintained the procedure with the military court.

On 12 November 2003, the Jaffa military court recognised Mr. Ben Artzi as a pacifist, but still found him guilty of "insubordination".

On 8 January 2004, Mr. Ben Artzi was released after the court recommended that he appears once again before the "military conscience committee". The hearing took place on 16 February 2004.

On 19 February 2004, the committee decided to discharge him from the army on the grounds that he was "unfit, due to lack of motivation" but did not acknowledge that Mr. Artzi was a "pacifist". In April 2004, Mr. Ben Artzi, who challenged the qualification of "unfit" and demanded that his status of "pacifist" be recognised, appealed this decision with the Civil Supreme Court. The hearing was initially scheduled for 18 October 2004, but was postponed until 10 February 2005.

On 21 April 2004, the Jaffa military court handed down its final verdict and sentenced Mr. Ben Artzi to another two months in prison and a of 2000 NIS (new Israeli shekels, 350 euros) fine. This ruling stipulated that if he did not pay the fine, he would serve an additional sentence of two months in prison. Mr. Ben Artzi appealed both the conviction and the sentence with the High Military Court of Appeal. The case was heard, without being judged, on 9 and 16 July 2004. As at the end of 2004, no further hearing had been scheduled.

Release of Messrs. Haggai Matar, Matan Kaminer, Shimri Zameret, Adam Maor and Noam Bahat⁴⁹

Mr. Haggai Matar, held in detention since 23 October 2002, and Messrs. Matan Kaminer, Shimri Zameret, Adam Maor and Noam Bahat, detained since December 2002, were summoned to appear before the Jaffa military court on 15 April 2003 for refusing to do their military service.

Although they were not opposed to the concept of military service, these five "selective objectors" refused to serve in an "occupying force" and called into question the operations conducted by the Israeli army in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

On 4 January 2004, the Jaffa military court condemned Messrs. Matar, Kaminer, Zameret, Maor and Bahat to one year imprisonment for "insubordination" and recommended that the army re-examine their exemption once their sentence served. The five objectors, who were held in "open detention" throughout their trial, were immediately transferred to military prison No. 6 in the outskirts of Haifa.

On 15 January 2004, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention stated in its final Opinion concerning these cases, submitted by the Observatory in May 2003, that the repeated penalties imposed on Messrs. Jonathan Ben Artzi, Matan Kaminer, Maor and Bahat were arbitrary and contravened the principle of non bis in idem, according to which "no one shall be liable to be tried or punished again for an offence for which he has already been finally convicted or acquitted (...)".⁵⁰

On 14 July 2004, the military conscience committee decided to reduce the sentences of Messrs. Haggai Matar, Matan Kaminer, Shimri Zameret, Adam Naor and Noam Bahat, who were released on 15 September 2004 (instead of January 2005). On 20 September 2004, their exemption from the military service was officially acknowledged.

Closing of the investigation into Adalah's activities⁵¹

On 23 August 2002, the association Adalah – "Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel" – received a letter from the Register of Associations services of the Ministry of the Interior, confirming that an official enquiry was being initiated into the activities of the organisation.

Adalah, which denounces violations of the civil, political, economic and social rights of Arab citizens in Israel, was targeted by a vast smear campaign after the opening of the enquiry was announced. The organisation appealed this decision with the Ministry of the Interior on 5 December 2002.

In May 2003, the Ministry's legal counsel submitted a list of 25 questions to the organisation as part of the investigation.

On 7 February 2004, the Minister of the Interior, Mr. Avraham Poraz, decided to uphold the appeal lodged by Adalah, therefore closing the enquiry into the association's activities.

Release of Mr. Daoud Dirawi⁵²

On 21 February 2003, Mr. Daoud Dirawi, a lawyer and co-ordinator for the programme on juvenile justice of Defence for Children International/Palestine Section (DCI/PS), was arrested by Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem on the occasion of an identity check.

Mr. Dirawi was then detained on remand for 12 days in the Asyun prison where he was severely beaten up by the soldiers who threw him to the ground, kicked and hit him with their fists and rifle butts before subjecting him to cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment.

On 3 March 2003, the military authorities ordered that Mr. Dirawi be held in administrative detention for six months on the grounds that he was "a threat to the security of the region" and that he was suspected of being a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). On 1 September 2003, he was informed that the administrative detention order was renewed for a further six months.

On 4 December 2003, the public Prosecutor, who was referred to by the Ofer military court in October 2003, decided to maintain Mr. Dirawi in administrative detention and recommended his trial by a military court so that he could be judged for his activities as a student in 19951996, even though he had already been tried and condemned to six months on remand for these facts in 2001.⁵³

Mr. Dirawi, who was scheduled for release on 2 March 2004, was set free on 29 January 2004, as part of a prisoner exchange between Israel and the Hezbollah. All charges brought against him were then dropped.

Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories⁵⁴

The closure of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank since the beginning of the second Intifada in 2000, the increased number of checkpoints and the building of the "separation Wall", together with the manifold legal and administrative obstacles imposed by the Israeli authorities, severely impaired the freedom of movement of Israeli, Palestinian and international NGOs, thereby reducing their scope for action and assistance.⁵⁵

Obstacles to the freedom of movement of Palestinian and Israeli human rights defenders

In August 2004, Mr. Rami Abu Shabban, an accountant with the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), was prevented to travel to Dublin (Ireland) to participate in a training course on "Accountancy for NGOs", run by Development Cooperation Ireland,⁵⁶ due to the complete closure of Rafah. Between 12 December 2004 and 20 January 2005, as access to the Gaza Strip was totally banned, NGOs defending human rights or providing humanitarian assistance, as well as UN representatives, were mostly unable to conduct their activities. Members of human rights organisations based in Israel, as all Israeli citizens, were not been allowed to enter the Occupied Palestinian Territories, forcing many associations, such as B'Tselem, to rely only on their Palestinian staff who had to develop their own programmes and activities in the Occupied Territories.

Members of NGOs denouncing human rights abuses and violations of humanitarian law committed in the Occupied Territories were hit by legal and administrative decisions made by the Israeli authorities and designed to restrict their movements. In March 2004, Mr. Sha'wan Jabarin, head of the legal department of Al-Haq, an organisation defending the rights of the Palestinians, was not allowed to travel to Lebanon to attend a conference held jointly by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), the Cairo Institute for human rights and the FIDH. On 30 June 2004, Israeli authorities placed a ban on Mr. Jabarin leaving the Occupied Territories, preventing him from attending a one-year course at the Galway university (Ireland), from August 2004 to September 2005. Mr. Jabarin was eventually granted his visa on 12 August 2004, after Al-Haq announced that it would bring the case before the Supreme Court.

Palestinian human rights defenders under the age of 35 wishing to travel from one city to another required special authorisation (referred to as "coordination") issued by the Israeli authorities, and they were particularly targeted when travelling abroad.

Mr. Hanny Abu Nahalla, a member of the PCHR, was banned from travelling to Strasburg (France) to attend a seminar on the protection of human rights, organised by the International Human Rights Institute (Institut international des droits de l'Homme) in July 2004, when the Israeli authorities refused to grant the "coordination" approval.

In December 2004, Mr. Ashraf Nassaralla, a lawyer with the PCHR, was unable to attend a seminar on legal proceedings and litigation in Amman (Jordan). The request for authorisation was lodged as required, but the PCHR did not receive any response from the Israeli authorities.

Since September 2004, Israeli authorities have systematically refused to acknowledge any requests for access to the Gaza Strip submitted by international and Palestinian humanitarian organisations.

A number of human rights defenders, in particular Palestinians, were accused by the Israeli authorities of posing a threat to the security in the region. Mr. Abdul Latif Gheith, head of the board of directors of the Prisoners' Support and Human Rights Association "Addameer", a Palestinian human rights NGO founded in 1992, was arrested by Israeli armed forces on 29 July 2004, at the military checkpoint at Qalandiya.⁵⁷ He was questioned by an officer from the general security services (Shabak) about his activities with Addameer and about the association staff; Mr. Gheith was taken to Giva'at Ze'ev, an Israeli settlement near Jerusalem, then transferred to Benyamin military detention camp on the military base in Ofer, on the outskirts of Ramallah. Mr. Gheith is a resident of Jerusalem and as such should not have been subjected to military rules applying in the West Bank and under which Israeli authorities are entitled to hold any Palestinian citizen in custody for one week without stating any reason for the arrest. Mr. Gheith did not have access to his lawyer until 4 August 2004, when he was sentenced to six months administrative detention, on orders given by the Israeli military commander of the West Bank, and on the grounds that he was a "threat to the security in the area". Mr. Gheith was scheduled for release on 5 February 2005.

Restrictions and attacks on Israeli and international humanitarian workers and pacifists

International human rights defenders and humanitarian workers also had to contend with the restrictions on freedom of movement imposed in the Palestinian Territories. On a number of occasions in 2004, various international organisations and institutions had to suspend their activities because of incursions by Israeli armed forces into the Occupied Territories, thereby depriving the Palestinian communities of access to health care and food distributions provided by these organisations.

In September 2004, Mr. Peter Hansen, Commissioner General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), was unable to travel to Amman (Jordan) where he was scheduled to attend the annual meeting of the agency's advisory commission, as the Occupied Territories had been completely closed and the Israeli authorities provided no assistance. The Israeli authorities also targeted the UNRWA through smear campaigns; e.g. on 1 October 2004, Israeli armed forces broadcast a video designed to prove that an ambulance belonging to the agency had been transporting a rocket. The Israeli authorities refuted these allegations on 13 October 2004.

A number of members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) were also refused entry to Israel on the grounds that they posed a "threat to the security of the State".

On 23 June 2004, Mrs. Ann Robinson-Potter, an American citizen and member of ISM, was arrested upon her arrival at Ben-Gurion airport in Tel-Aviv. Mrs. Potter was suspected of having links with terrorist organisations and was detained for 28 days before being released and allowed to enter Israel once the ruling was handed down by the court of Tel-Aviv.

On 13 December 2004, Mrs. Kate Raphael Bender, a member of the International Women's Peace Service in Palestine (IWPS), was arrested during a peaceful demonstration in Bil'in protesting against the building of the Wall, and was sentenced to be expelled by the authorities. Mrs. Bender lodged an appeal against the ruling with the court of Tel-Aviv.

On 7 November 2004, a peaceful march in Kufr Thulth protesting against the expulsion of Palestinian residents was crushed by Israeli soldiers; the victims of this violence included a journalist and two Israeli human rights defenders who were struck.

[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.]

48. See Annual Report 2003 and Press Releases, 5 and 19 January, 23 April, 20 July and 27 September 2004.

49. Idem.

50. See Article 14.7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966, ratified by Israel on 19 April 1966.

51. See Annual Report 2003 and Press Release, 19 February 2004.

52. See Annual Report 2003.

53. Mr. Dirawi was found guilty on the grounds of his activities as an active member of the Student Workers' Front (SWF), which the Israeli authorities believe to be linked to the PFLP. He was released in March 2002.

54. See Annual Report 2003.

55. See the report of the international fact-finding mission mandated by the Observatory and the Forefront organisation: Bridges instead of walls: conditions and challenges experienced by human rights defenders in carrying out their work, June 2004.

56. A programme of the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, providing aid and assistance to developing countries.

57. Qalandiya, located between Jerusalem and Ramallah, is the main military checkpoint on the West Bank.