Addameer Submits Urgent Appeal to UN

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UPDATE: Addameer Submits Urgent Appeal to UN Protesting the

Arbitrary Arrest and Detention of Ameer Makhoul as Israeli Crackdown on Palestinian Civil Society Intensifies

Gag Order Lifted in Makhoul Case, but Ban on Contact with Lawyers is Renewed

[Ramallah, 10 May 2010]

Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association submitted an urgent appeal to the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders on behalf of Ittijah General Director Ameer Makhoul, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, who was arrested by Israeli authorities from his home in Haifa early that morning and detained at Petah Tikva interrogation center. The urgent appeal seeks immediate intervention by the UN body in Mr. Makhoul’s case on the grounds that his arrest, detention and a recent order banning him from exiting the country are arbitrary, politically motivated measures and constitute persecution of a human rights defender in violation of international law.

On Friday, 7 May 2010, the court at Petah Tikva denied an appeal challenging an order banning Mr. Makhoul from meeting with his attorneys for a four-day period that was issued in a hearing held only hours after his arrest. The ban was renewed for two days prior to its expiration on Sunday 9 May at midnight and is now set to expire at midnight on Tuesday 11 May. Mr. Makhoul’s lawyers expect the order to be renewed again on its expiration.

Meanwhile, the gag order prohibiting Israeli publication of any mention of Mr. Makhoul’s arrest or any of the related circumstances or procedures was lifted following appeals filed by Adalah and others against the court-ordered ban on Friday. Earlier today, the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) replied to the petitions, telling the court that they “don’t mind” if the ban is removed. News articles detailing Mr. Makhoul’s case appeared in various online Israeli media sources soon after.

The next hearing in Mr. Makhoul’s case, to determine whether his detention will again be extended, is scheduled to be heard in the first instance court at Petah Tikva on Wednesday 12 May.

Evidence of a growing Israeli campaign against human rights defenders

Mr. Makhoul’s case is only one example amidst a recent escalated campaign by Israeli authorities against Palestinian human rights defenders and civil resistance. In addition to arbitrary arrest and detention, Israeli authorities have applied travel bans against a number of Palestinian human rights defenders in recent months.

§ Dr. Omar Said, another Palestinian citizen of Israel and a high-profile academic and social and political activist from Kufr Kina village in northern 1948 territory, was arrested while on his way to Jordan on 24 April 2010. Following his arrest, Dr. Said was transferred to Petah Tikva interrogation center, where he remains at present. According to reports, Israeli police accompanied by ISA agents also searched Dr. Said’s home.

§ Mahmoud Mihareb, also a Palestinian citizen of Israel and a university lecturer who was accompanying Dr. Omar Said when the latter was arrested on 24 April 2010, was given a travel ban of unknown duration beginning from that date.

§ Palestinian cartographer and human rights defender Khalil Tafakji was issued with a six-month travel ban on 4 February 2010. Mr. Tafaki, a resident of East Jerusalem, has accompanied numerous Palestinian delegations to peace talks between 1992 and 2001, and has traveled extensively to lecture on the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT).

§ Al-Haq Director Shawan Jabarin was issued with a travel ban on 23 March 2006, following his appointment as head of Al-Haq. Mr. Jabarin’s ban remains in place at present despite three separate appeals to the Israeli High Court.

Israeli authorities have also started to target Palestinian, Israeli and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as part of their wider campaign against Palestinian human rights defenders. Measures used include raids of organizations’ offices, deportation of organization staff and volunteers, a new policy of visa denials for international NGO workers, and pending legislation in the Knesset that would enable the Israeli government to close down any organization that gives information to foreign actors or participates in legal efforts outside Israel to try Israeli officials for war crimes.

§ On 12 January 2010, Israeli authorities deported International Solidarity Movement (ISM) media coordinator and Czech national Eva Novakova after a reported 20 Israeli soldiers accompanied by immigration officers from the “Oz” unit raided her apartment in Ramallah and arrested her the previous day.

§ On 20 January 2010, Jared Malsin, chief English-language editor of Ma’an News Agency, who had been held in detention at a cell in Ben-Gurion airport for eight days pending a legal challenge against his expulsion, was also deported.

§ In the early morning hours of 7 February 2010, Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) raided the Ramallah apartment of ISM activists Ariadna Jove Marti, a Spanish journalist, and Bridgette Chappell, an Australian student at Birzeit University. Both were taken to Ofer Military Base near Ramallah before being handed over to the “Oz” unit police. The Israeli High Court ordered both to be released on bail on 8 February 2010, after levying them with $800 bond fees each and banning them from entering the West Bank.

§ The same week, IOF soldiers raided ISM’s Ramallah offices twice, on Sunday 7 February, and Wednesday 10 February at 3 a.m., confiscating computers, t-shirts and bracelets bearing “Palestine” engravings.

§ Late into the night of 7 February 2010, the IOF also raided the Ramallah offices of Palestinian NGO Stop the Wall, confiscating computer hard disks, laptops, and video cameras along with paper documents, CDs, and video cassettes.

§ On 4 April 2010, the office of Michigan Peace Team in the village of Huwwara near Nablus was raided by the IOF.

§ On 13 April 2010, Israeli Military Order 1650 came into effect, broadening the definition of who could be considered an “infiltrator” under the military orders governing the OPT.[1] The wording of the order, which for the first time established a requirement for everyone present in the OPT to have an Israeli-issued permit to be there, places a new threat on all individuals present in the West Bank including international NGO workers who likely remain at particular risk for arrest and deportation.

§ On 28 April 2010, a group of 19 Knesset members introduced a draft bill entitled “Associations (Amutot) Law (Amendment – Exceptions to the Registration and Activity of an Association), 2010”.[2] The aim of this bill is to close down any existing NGO registered in Israel, and to prohibit the registration of a new NGO, if “there are reasonable grounds to conclude that the association is providing information to foreign entities or is involved in legal proceedings abroad against senior Israeli government officials or IDF officers, for war crimes.” If passed, this bill has enormous potential to obstruct the activities of all human rights NGOs based in Israel and further inhibit the ability and responsibility of the international community to hold Israel to account for its war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Background on Mr. Makhoul’s arrest and detention

Ameer Makhoul was arrested on 6 May 2010 at 3:10 a.m. when ISA agents accompanied by Israeli police raided his family home in Haifa, northern 1948 territory/Israel.

After jumping the fence surrounding the home and banging loudly on the door until Mr. Makhoul answered, the 16 ISA agents and police officers immediately separated him from his family, including wife Janan and daughters Hind, 17 and Huda, 12, and began to conduct an extensive search of the home. They allowed Mr. Makhoul to change clothes and place some things in a small bag and took him outside for a period before escorting him back into the home to find keys for the home and the family’s cars.

According to Janan, the police confiscated items including documents, maps, the family’s four mobile phones, Ameer and Janan’s laptops, the hard drives from the girls’ two desktop computers, a camera and a small tape recorder containing not-yet-transcribed oral histories Janan collects as part of her work. The police also intentionally scattered Hind’s study materials, even after Hind and her mother informed them that Hind was to sit for the “Bagrut” exam, the official Israeli matriculation exam, the following day.

At one point during the police search, Janan says, one officer violently restrained her, twisting her arm and pushing her when she attempted to leave the home’s living room to observe the confiscations. The security forces also refused to identify themselves[3] and showed her a warrant authorizing Mr. Makhoul’s arrest only after she repeatedly insisted. The order had been signed on 23 April 2010 and cited unsubstantiated “security” reasons as the grounds for Mr. Makhoul’s arrest.

Meanwhile, approximately 40 minutes after their arrival, a group of the security forces left with Mr. Makhoul in custody. At around the same time, the Israeli authorities raided the office of Ittijah – The Union of Arab Community-Based Associations, where Mr. Makhoul serves as General Director, and confiscated documents and the hard drives from all of the organization’s computers.

The police finally left the Makhouls’ home at approximately 5:30 a.m. Before leaving, an officer presented Janan with a list purporting to document everything the security forces had confiscated and requested her signature. However, the officer refused to let Janan check the list or view what they had taken, so she refused to sign.

At some point after 8 a.m., Janan received a phone call from someone identifying themselves as a representative from the “international terrorism” section of Petah Tikva interrogation center and informed her that Mr. Makhoul was being detained there for interrogation and that she can contact a lawyer to follow up on his case.

At approximately 11 a.m. that same morning, a detention extension review in the complainant’s case was held at Petah Tikva interrogation center.[4] The judge at the hearing extended Mr. Makhoul’s detention until 12 May 2010 and banned him from meeting with his attorney for at least four days.

At present, to our best knowledge, Mr. Makhoul remains in Israeli detention at Petah Tikva interrogation center.

Travel ban

This arrest comes shortly after Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai signed an administrative order prohibiting Mr. Makhoul from exiting the country for a two month period.

On 22 April 2010, Mr. Makhoul arrived at the Sheikh Hussein Bridge terminal at the Jordan River, intending to exit Israel on his way to Jordan and then several additional countries for meetings with a range of civil society organizations and their representatives. After presenting his passport at the Israeli passport control desk, he was informed that the Israel Interior Minister had issued an order the previous day forbidding him to leave the country until 21 June 2010.

In the order, Israeli Minister of the Interior, Eli Yishai, states that “I have reached the conviction that the exit of Ameer Makhoul from the country poses a serious threat to the security of the state, and therefore I issue this order to prevent him from leaving the country until the 21st of June, 2010” according to article 6 of the 1948 emergency regulations. The order further instructs that a copy should be delivered to Mr. Makhoul and that he has 14 days to introduce any written argument in opposition.

The travel ban against Mr. Makhoul is scheduled to expire on 21 June 2010. However, as such bans are frequently renewed on or just before the end of the ban period, it remains to be seen whether Mr. Makhoul’s ban will continue indefinitely.

Previous arrest and harassment by Israeli authorities

These recent events are not the first times in which the complainant has been subjected to arrest, detention and harassment by the Israeli authorities in relation to his prominent human rights work. To the contrary, Mr. Makhoul has been subjected to ongoing measures of harassment and intimidation in relation to his human rights activism, particularly during and after the Israeli ground, air and naval offensive in the Gaza Strip, which took place from 27 December 2008 until 18 January 2009.[5]

On 8 January 2010, 10 days after Mr. Makhoul gave a speech in Haifa protesting the then-ongoing attack on Gaza, Israeli police demanded that he come for an interrogation. Mr. Makhoul refused, and was forcibly escorted from Ittijah’s Haifa headquarters by two ISA officers to a police station where he was interviewed for three hours. The complainant recalls of this interrogation: “They told me I would be thrown in jail if I continued my political work and that they could arrange for me to be dumped in Gaza. Their main concern seemed to be that I was urging the younger generation to be more politically active”.[6]

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ACT NOW!

Addameer views Ameer Makhoul’s arrest, detention and travel ban as deliberate violations of the complainant’s fundamental freedoms, particularly freedoms of movement, expression, association and non-violent assembly, and of the special protections owed under international law to human rights defenders. Furthermore, as Mr. Makhoul’s arrest warrant and travel ban order are based on emergency regulations and “secret” information that is never disclosed to the defense, Addameer considers them to be arbitrary political actions in violation of fundamental due process principles and human rights standards.

Addameer thus urges foreign government officials, including members of foreign representative offices to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and foreign Consulates in East Jerusalem, as well as representatives of the European Commission and the European Parliament, human rights organizations and United Nations bodies to:

§ Raise Ameer Makhoul’s case in their official meetings with Israeli officials;

§ Demand clarifications regarding the reason for Mr. Makhoul’s arrest and extended detention in official letters addressed to Israeli authorities;

§ Demand Mr. Makhoul’s immediate release and the lifting of the travel ban against him;

§ Pressure Israel to put an end to its policy of arbitrary detention and deportation of human rights defenders; and,

§ Expand the military courts monitoring project to include monitoring of Israeli courts viewing cases of Palestinian citizens of Israel under political detention.

Addameer also urges the international community to take action to help Ameer Makhoul by:

§ Writing to the Israeli government, military and legal authorities and demand that:

o Mr. Makhoul be released immediately, and the travel ban against him be lifted;

o Israeli security authorities immediately cease their unlawful arrest and detention policies of Palestinian human rights defenders; and,

o Israeli authorities end the practice of arbitrary detention, the use of ‘secret information’, and incommunicado detention.

Eli Yishai Yehuda Weinstein

Minister of the Interior Attorney General

2 Kaplan St., Qiryat Ben-Gurion 29 Salah A-Din St.
P.O. Box 6158, 91061 Jerusalem Jerusalem, 91010
Tel. +972 (0)2 670 1411 Tel. +972 (0)2 646 6521/2

Fax: +972 (0)2 6467001

Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu

Prime Minister

Office of the Prime Minister

3, Kaplan Street, PO Box 187

Kiryat Ben-Gurion, Jerusalem, Israel

Fax: +972 (02) 651 2631

Email: pm_eng@pmo.gov.il

§ Write to your own elected and diplomatic representatives urging them to pressure Israel to release Mr. Makhoul and to put an end to the ongoing harassment against Palestinian human rights defenders.

Contact details for international embassies and consulates in Israel are available at: http://www.embassiesabroad.com/embassies-in/Israel

§ Write to the International Bar Association to protest Israel’s use of arbitrary detention and the use of ‘secret information’ and incommunicado detentions: and,

§ Write to Baroness Catherine Ashton, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the Vice President of the European Commission urging European intervention with Israel regarding political prosecutions inside Israel and current and pending legislation that outlaws human rights organizations.

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For more information on the Israeli campaign of repression against Palestinian human rights defenders, please visit our website: www.addameer.info or contact us directly:

Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association

Tel: +972 (0)2 296 0446 / 297 0136

Fax: +972 (0)2 296 0447

Email: info@addameer.ps

Website: www.addameer.info

Visit the web blog on Ameer Makhoul for updated information: http://FreeAmeerMakhoul.blogspot.com/

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[1] Full text of Military Order 1650, Order regarding Prevention of Infiltration (Amendment No. 2) is available at: http://www.hamoked.org.il/items/112301_eng.pdf

[2] On 29 April 2010, a group of 10 Israeli human rights organizations issued a joint statement in opposition to the draft bill: “Human Rights Groups in Israel Respond to Proposed Bill to Suppress Information about Serious Breaches of International Law: A Danger to Democracy”, 29 April 2010 (available at: http://www.gisha.org/index.php?intLanguage=2&intSiteSN=113&intItemId=1756)

[3] One officer, just as they were leaving, gave Janan his name and ID number.

[4] Israeli law provides that Israeli citizens can be held in custody for a maximum of 24 hours before being brought before a judge. An Israeli citizen accused of a security offense (almost always Palestinians with Israeli citizenship) can be held for four days before going before a judge

[5] As the UN Fact Finding Mission noted in its September 2009 report, this period was marked by widespread intimidation and humiliation by Israeli authorities of Palestinian community leaders. The Mission also recorded that at least 20 Arab leaders were forced to attend illegal interrogations by the ISA where they were asked about their political activities.

[6] http://www.paltelegraph.com/palestine/gaza-strip/2415-gaza-peace-protester-is-imprisoned-in-own-home