Israel: Immediately Lift the Travel Ban Imposed on Abdullatif Ghaith

The international community to intervene immediately with the Israeli authorities to lift all bans restricting Mr. Ghaith’s freedom of movement.

(SALEM) - Israel has imposed an international travel ban on 71-year old Abdullatif Ghaith, the chair and one of the founders of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association.

The move comes as Palestinian prisoners in Israel are staging a series of Hunger Strikes in recent months. The mounting pressure is forcing Israel to make concessions toward their rights. As an advocate for the most traumatized human beings, Addameer has played a key role visiting prisoners and supporting them by getting information out to the world.

This is not a crime, it is simple humanity at work and few things are more important as the matter centers around international law that precludes governments from simply clamping down on those who raise objections or share information that is less than favorable to the offending government.

Abdullatif Ghaith

Our Human Rights Ambassador, Mr. William Nicholas Gomes and many others, calls on the international community to intervene immediately with the Israeli authorities to lift all bans restricting Mr. Ghaith’s freedom of movement so that he may continue to carry out his human rights work unimpeded.

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Benjamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister of the State of Israel
Office of the Prime Minister
3 Kaplan Street, P O Box 187
Jerusalem 91919, Israel
Phone: +972-2-6753333
Fax: +972 2 6521599
E-mail: pm_eng@pmo.gov.il

Re: Israel: Immediately lift the travel ban imposed on Abdullatif Ghaith

Dear Prime Minister of the State of Israel,

I am William Nicholas Gomes, Human Rights Ambassador for Salem-News.com.

I have been informed by the Palestinian Council of Human Rights Organisations,

Sahar Francis,General Director, Addameer Prisoners’ Support and Human Rights Association
Khalil Abu Shammala,General Director ,Aldameer Association for Human Rights
Shawan Jabarin,General Director, Al-Haq
Issam Younis,General Director,Al Mezan Center for Human Rights
Najwa Darwish,General Director, Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights
Rifat Kassis,General Director, Defence for Children International Palestine Section
Shawqi Issa,General Director,Ensan Center for Human Rights and Democracy
Helmi Al-araj,General Director,Hurryyat - Centre for Defense of Liberties and Civil Rights
Issam Aruri,General Director,Jerusalem Center for Legal Aid and Human Rights
Iyad Barghouti,General Director,Ramallah Center for Human Rights Studies and
Maha Abu Dayyeh,General Director,Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling

that Israel has imposed an international travel ban on Abdullatif Ghaith, the chair and one of the founders of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association.

Over recent months, as Palestinian prisoners have staged a wave of hunger strikes forcing Israel to make concessions toward their rights, Addameer has played a key role visiting, liaising with and supporting the prisoners and getting information out to the world.

Ghaith, 71, is a prominent human rights defender, activist, and is himself a former “administrative detainee” held repeatedly by Israeli occupation forces without charge or trial.

This is not the first time Israel has targeted prominent Palestinian human rights defenders in this way. For more than six years, Israel has banned Shawan Jabarin, the head of Al-Haq, from traveling abroad, similarly without providing any evidence.

As a human rights ambassador I am dedicated for promotion and protection of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), along with the Palestinian Council of Human Rights Organizations (PCHRO), I express my utmost dismay at the recent Israeli decision to ban Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association Chairperson Abdullatif Ghaith from travelling abroad. Mr. Ghaith, a 71-year-old East Jerusalem resident, is one of the founders of Addameer and has been serving on its Board for the past 20 years. He is also a well-known public figure resulting from his long history of human rights activism in Jerusalem and the rest of the OPT, in addition to his prominent political activism including his run for Palestinian Legislative Council elections in 2006.

On 2 August 2012, Mr. Ghaith received a phone call from Israeli intelligence representatives requesting that he present himself immediately to Moskobiyyeh interrogation center in Jerusalem. Upon presenting himself the following day, Mr. Ghaith was ordered to sign an order banning him from travelling abroad. The ban, which is signed by Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai, will remain in place until 31 January 2013. The order claims that Mr. Ghaith constitutes a threat to “state security”, although no evidence is given to support such claim.

This is not the first time Mr. Ghaith has been targeted by Israel for his human rights activism. The current order banning him from travelling abroad is in addition to an existing ban that prevents him from entering the West Bank (as defined by Israel). This West Bank ban originally came into effect on 10 October 2011 for a duration of six months, although it was subsequently extended for an additional six months in April 2012 and is now due to expire in September 2012. Furthermore, since becoming Chairperson of Addameer, Mr. Ghaith has been held without charge or trial in Israeli prison under administrative detention on three separate occasions, lasting for six months on each occasion. His most recent administrative detention lasted from June 2004 to January 2005.

The continued targeting of Mr. Ghaith cannot be viewed in isolation but must rather be viewed within a much broader context of a systematic attempt by Israel to suppress Palestinian civil society and stifle Palestinian development, while strengthening Israel’s occupation. Evidence of this repression can be seen in the increasing number of Palestinian civil society organizations that have been ordered to close, particularly in East Jerusalem, and the targeting of human rights defenders throughout the OPT. Other prominent members of Palestinian civil society have also been targeted in the same manner by Israel, such as the director of human rights organization Al-Haq, Shawan Jabarin, who has been banned from travelling abroad since 2006, with two exceptions this year in which his travel was highly restricted.

Human rights defenders are formally defined as persons who work, peacefully, for any or all of the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Mr. Ghaith’s life’s work on behalf of political prisoners—inspired by his own experience as a prisoner—clearly falls within the category of a human rights defender, in that his activities are peaceful in nature and aimed at the promotion of human rights. According to Mr. Ghaith, “Israel considers every activity that tackles Israeli violations of human rights as a threat to state security. Israel wants its occupation to proceed without any accountability. This is not an issue of an individual; it involves all Palestinians.”

Along with PCHRO , I strongly condemn the travel ban imposed on Mr. Ghaith and continued Israeli attempts to silence Palestinian civil society. The ban on Mr. Ghaith not only violates his fundamental human rights, namely his right to freedom of movement, but also disregards the special protections afforded to him as a human rights defender according to the United Nations General Assembly Declaration on human rights defenders.

Along with PCHRO, I therefore call on the international community to intervene immediately with the Israeli authorities to lift all bans restricting Mr. Ghaith’s freedom of movement so that he may continue to carry out his human rights work unimpeded. In particular, along with PCHRO, I call on the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights Defenders to intervene with Israel and raise the case of Mr. Ghaith and other Palestinian human rights defenders, such as Mr. Jabarin. Along with PCHRO,I also urge the European Union, especially the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, to act in accordance with its decision to “throw its full weight behind advocates of liberty, democracy and human rights throughout the world” by consistently bringing up with Israel its continued infringements of the special protections afforded to Palestinian human rights defenders, as well as calling for the lifting of the travel bans imposed on Mr. Ghaith and Mr. Jabarin.

Sincerely,

William Nicholas Gomes
Human Rights Ambassador
www.williamgomes.org

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Salem-News.com Human Rights Ambassador William Nicholas Gomes is a Bangladeshi journalist, human rights activist and author was born on 25 December, 1985 in Dhaka. As an investigative journalist he wrote widely for leading European and Asian media outlets.

He is also active in advocating for free and independent media and journalists’ rights, and is part of the free media movement, Global Independent Media Center – an activist media network for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate telling of the truth. He worked for Italian news agency Asianews.it from year 2009 to 2011, on that time he was accredited as a free lance journalist by the press information department of Bangladesh. During this time he has reported a notable numbers of reports for the news agency which were translated into Chinese and Italian and quoted by notable number of new outlets all over the world.He, ideologically, identifies himself deeply attached with anarchism. His political views are often characterized as “leftist” or “left-wing,” and he has described himself as an individualist anarchist.