| Al Mezan Center for Human Rights has the Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic & Social Council (ECOSOC) | |
| Press Release |
Date: 24 January 2012
Al Mezan Condemns Attacks on Chairman and PLC Members in West Bank,
Calls on International Community and Parliaments World-Wide to Intervene
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) are continuing their aggressive attacks on members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in the West Bank. On 19 January 2012, the IOF arrested Dr. Abdel Aziz Dweik, the chairman of the PLC; an Israeli court has sentenced him to six months of administrative imprisonment. Then on Monday 23 January 2012, the IOF broke into a tent at a solidarity sit-in for PLC members being held at the head office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Jerusalem. The IOF arrested Mohammed Tuttah, a PLC member, and Khalid Abu Arafa, former Minister of Jerusalem Affairs. In the early morning hours of Tuesday 24 January 2012, the IOF arrested Abdel Jaber Fuqahaa’, another PLC member, from his house in Ramallah.
According to sources in the PLC, on Tuesday 24 January 2012, the Israeli military Court in Ofer prison sentenced Dr. Aziz Dweik to six months of administrative imprisonment without charging him. On Thursday 19 January 2012, the IOF had arrested Dr. Dweik at an Israeli checkpoint northeast of Jerusalem. Dr. Dweik was on his way from Ramallah to Hebron after meeting with South Africa’s representative to the Palestinian Authority.
In separate incidents, on the afternoon of Monday 23 January 2012, the IOF broke into the head office of the ICRC in Ash-Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, arresting Mohammed Touttah and Khalid Abu Arafa and confiscating their belongings. Then during the early morning hours of Tuesday 24 January 2012, the IOF surrounded and searched the house of Abdel Jaber Mustafa Fuqahaa’ before arresting him. The house is located in Al Masoun neighborhood in Ramallah.
The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights strongly condemns the arrest of the PLC chairman and his trial; the intrusion into the PLC sit-in tent at ICRC headquarters; and the escalation of arbitrary detentions of PLC members. Al Mezan asserts that these detentions and associated acts are a form of collective punishment of Palestinians. Al Mezan holds that these actions are part of Israel’s policy to entrench the Palestinian internal split and to impede efforts aiming to end it. These moves come after the Palestinian parties had agreed to conduct a PLC session headed by Dr. Dweik, which was intended as the first practical step towards ending the Palestinian internal split and reexamining the legislative and monitoring functions of the PLC. Al Mezan further asserts that hindering the work of the PLC contributes to the entrenchment a state of lawlessness in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) and exacerbates the already-deteriorated human rights situation as the IOF escalates its attacks on Palestinians and their properties. These IOF acts also contribute to the weakening of the Palestinian Authority and its ability to carry out its legislative and executive functions.
Al Mezan calls on the international community to intervene in order to end Israel’s systematic and grave violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law in the oPt, particularly its unlawful acts against Palestinian representatives. It also calls on the international community to end all political arrests and detentions violating principles of fair trial. Al Mezan calls in particular on parliaments around the world to intervene and to exert political and diplomatic pressure for the release of PLC members and respect for their parliamentary immunity.
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For more information, please contact at Al Mezan Center for Human Rights office in Gaza City
on: +970 8 2820442/7 between 08:00 and 15:00 (6:00-1:00 GMT) Sundays through Thursday.
| | Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights | |
| | 5/102-1 Al Mena, Omar El-Mukhtar Street, Western Rimal, Gaza City, The Gaza Strip, P.O. Box. 5270 | |
| | Telefax: 00970- 8- 2820447 , 2820442 | |
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