WRITTEN BY AVIGAIL ABARBANEL 

Inverness Scotland, 18 March 2010

Please watch the documentary ‘Children of Gaza’ by Jezza Neumann here. Then please visit http://childrenofgazafund.org/  to make a donation to help Amal who has been living with shrapnel in her brain since Israel’s attack just over a year ago.A couple of nights ago I watched the documentary ‘Children of Gaza’ on Channel 4’s ‘Dispatches’. The film was made by the award winning documentary maker Jezza Neumann. Since then I can’t get the face of Amal, one of the four children featured in the film, out of my head. Amal was wounded during Israel’s attack on Gaza just over a year ago. She was found under rubble and I understand that for a while she lay near the dead and mutilated bodies of her uncles, one of whom had his head split in two.

Since Israel’s attack over a year ago, Amal has been living with several pieces of shrapnel lodged in her head. She is suffering from frequent awful headaches and nosebleeds. This is in addition to the obvious psychological trauma that she has to live with. As a psychotherapist I have no idea how long it will take and if it will ever be possible for Amal to recover from the trauma she has been through, and what life will be like for her if the shrapnel can’t be taken out of her brain.

In the film it was explained that an Israeli charity arranged for Amal to see a neurosurgeon in Israel to see what could be done for her. I understood the necessity but I still don’t think it was appropriate to send Amal to Israel for treatment. Imagine what it must feel like for her. Amal knows perfectly well that Israel is responsible for what had happened to her, to her family and her community. Can you imagine what she must have felt when she was sent to an Israeli surgeon? That surgeon, good or not, is or was a solider in the same military force that has been hurting Amal’s people. To send her to someone like that is insensitive and macabre.

I was also absolutely appalled that despite receiving permission to go into Israel to be examined by the surgeon, Amal and her elderly grandmother were made to wait 7 hours outdoors to get permission to cross the border. This is just another example of the indignities that Israel puts the Palestinian people through on a daily basis. There was no real reason for the wait just like there is no reason to keep anyone waiting for hours at checkpoints every day. Jewish Israel does not think that the Palestinian people deserve to be treated with dignity.

But do not make the mistake of dismissing this as the random acts of a messy and dysfunctional third world style bureaucracy. Rather this is a deliberate and calculated campaign to humiliate the Palestinian people and break their spirit. Broken people stop resisting even when exposed to the worst abuses.

In its fight against the spirit of Palestinian resistance Jewish Israel does not distinguish between the very young, the infirm, the able-bodied or the elderly. Every human spirit can inspire resistance. The inspiration and motivation to resist can come from your elderly grandmother just as much as your ten-year-old niece or newborn baby. Every single person with an aspiration for freedom is a threat to an occupier and oppressor. This is why Israeli soldiers can murder young children in their parents’ arms. They don’t distinguish between freedom fighters and ordinary people. This is the reason behind Israel’s persistent policy of collective punishment. It’s also why there is an international law against it. It’s because occupying powers and oppressors have always viewed the whole group as a threat, not just the designated freedom fighters.

The lack of compassion and humanity on Israel’s part is staggering and frankly I have had just enough of this. I don’t believe that a Jewish Israeli child or soldier with a brain injury would have been treated as poorly as Amal was. What Israeli soldier would allow his grandmother to be treated the way Amal’s grandmother was?

Enough is enough! I can’t sit by any longer and watch this happen without doing something. I would like to see Amal flown to a country overseas with an adult family member to be examined and possibly operated on by a capable and caring surgeon who has nothing to do with Israel and who would be prepared to take on Amal’s case. I know this is likely to cost a lot and will be hard to organise, so I hope a group of us can get together to arrange this somehow. I have never done anything like this before and have no experience. But among the readers there are people with great organising, campaigning and fundraising skills and experience, people who have means, people who have influence and people who know people in key places.

I am asking you to join together to take on Amal’s cause, and help her and her family end this ongoing nightmare. It’s important that Amal’s family in Gaza is contacted so that they can be an integral part of any attempt to help her.

All the children of Gaza need help; all the people of Gaza need help. I would like to help everyone and the way to do this is to do everything possible to end the siege, open the borders and ultimately end the occupation of the Palestinian people. It is unacceptable that people should live the way the people in Gaza do. Jewish Israel cannot be trusted to end this nightmare out of the goodness of its heart. Israel is going very fast down the slippery slope of war crimes and human rights violations. Despite its relentless protest and cries of ‘poor me’, Jewish Israel is a morally bankrupt state that is rapidly losing the legitimacy it should never have had in the first place.

On the Channel 4 website Jezza Neumann, the director of ‘The Children of Gaza’ wrote a short piece (http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/articles/children-ofgaza-filmmakers-feature  describing his experiences in Gaza. In it he mentions that if anyone wants to help any of the children featured in the film they should contact http://childrenofgazafund.org/  There you will be able to make a donation for one or more of the four children mentioned in the film. The site is hosted by True  Vision Productions, which was “founded in 1995 by Brian Woods and Deborah Shipley to make international campaigning documentaries. A number of charities have grown out of the films [they have] made… The Foundation is for those viewers who SPECIFICALLY want to help the individuals featured in our films. Each film will have its own account, and donations to that account will be used solely in connection with helping the characters from that film.”

Please make a donation through the site but let’s see if we can do more than give money. Perhaps we can in some way support the True Vision foundation to offer the help that Amal and the other children need so urgently.

The film http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/episode-guide/series-56/episode-1

On the 25th February 2010, at the Court of Appeal, Royal Courts of Justice, The Strand, London, a hearing is going to take place of Al Haq vs The Secretary of state for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs

The Al Haq case is lead by Phil Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers (PIL), a UK based lawyer specialising in international and national issues concerning environmental and human rights law.

Al Haq is an independent Palestinian human rights organisation founded in 1979. It monitors and documents human rights violations by all parties in the Israeli Palestinian conflict, issuing reports on it's findings and producing detailed legal studies.

The Al Haq case consists of a claim for judicial review before the high court of England & Wales challenging the government of the UK over its failure to fulfil its obligations under international law with respect to Israel's activities in the Occupied Palestinian territories.

The Legal Basis for the Claim

Over the past 42 years, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, has aggressively targeted both the land and the people of the OPT. That the Palestinians are a people with the right to self-determination is undisputable under international law. Israel's denial of the Palestinian right to self-determination is comprehensive. Through its prolonged military occupation and violation of the territorial integrity of the OPT, its illegal settlement policy and denial of the Palestinians' permanent sovereignty over their natural resources, Israel has prevented the population of the OPT from freely determining its political status and freely pursuing its economic, social and cultural development. The right to self-determination is established in international law as giving rise to obligations erga omnes, whereby all states, including the UK, are bound to ensure its realisation. The UK has breached this obligation by failing to take meaningful action towards the cessation of Israel‘s policies in violation of the Palestinian right to self-determination.

Similarly, the UK has failed to fulfil the duty, confirmed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its 2004 advisory opinion, not to recognise or assist the illegal situation created by Israel's purported annexation of occupied East Jerusalem and construction of the Wall in the West Bank, a measure described by the ICJ as potentially "tantamount to de facto annexation." The prohibition on the acquisition of territory through the threat or use of force is one of the pillars upon which contemporary public international law is built, and is established as a peremptory norm of international law (jus cogens)  which is universally binding on states and from which no derogation is permitted. 

Al-Haq‘s claim is further based on the UK‘s failure to prevent Israel‘s persistent violations of fundamental principles of international law. The recent "Operation Cast Lead" in the Gaza Strip resulted in the death of more than 1,350 Palestinians, majority of whom were civilians, including more than 310 children, and the further wounding of over 4,000 more. Documentation gathered to date by Al-Haq‘s fieldworkers in the Gaza Strip includes prima facie evidence of war crimes amounting to grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Conventions.

We are asking the members of public to come and show their support for the Palestinian people by attending the hearing.

When violations of international law are committed those people who have been violated need to know that cases on their behalf are being supported in the wider world.

If you would like to join us and attend this hearing, information is as follows,

“Non-Violence is a powerful weapon that can and will weaken the iron fist of the Occupation”

WRITTEN BY Sami Awad, Director of the Holy Land Trust

What is Non-Violent Resistance?

Non-Violence is an alternative to either armed resistance or passive acceptance of the status quo. It is both a strategy and a philosophy which rejects violence as a means to promote change, and instead aims to change power relations through assertive acts of omission (refusal to do something) or commission (actively challenging the status quo). It is a method by which to change the minds of both the oppressor and oppressed so that a new reality can be built upon different perceptions of the ‘other’.

The many tactics of non-violence can be broken down into three broad categories:

1) Civil Disobedience: when individuals or a group refuse to obey rules and laws, therefore undermining the power of the oppressor. For example refusing to respect laws prohibiting the gathering of people, or the waving of a flag as has been the case in Palestine.

2) Reverse Strike: Involves community building and the creation of alter-natives, in order to make a people less dependent on the facilities of their oppressor. This can involve boycotts of the oppressor’s goods and services and the development of alternatives.

3) Direct Action: These are symbolic actions which are specifically directed to gain broad sympathy or express personal grief, opinions and commit-ment to a just cause. Direct action can take many forms along the spectrum between assertiveness and aggressiveness. For example a peaceful protest versus a group of individuals actively removing a roadblock or earth mound.

Successful non-violent campaigns are able to effectively utilize all three of these methods simultaneously.

Non-Violence in Palestine – Past and Present

Despite the common mischaracterization of Palestinian resistance as wholly violent or radical, there is a long and rich history non-violent actions and campaigns, as well as a large number of contemporary ones. For instance:

In 1902, the inhabitants of three Palestinian villages – al-Shajara, Misha and Melhamiyya – held a collective peaceful protest against the takeover of 70,000 dunums (7,000 hectares) of agricultural land by the first European Zionist settlers.

In 1936 Palestinians held a six-month non-violent industrial strike against the British Mandate’s refusal to grant self determination to Palestine. The ultimate aim of the strike was to make Palestine ungovernable by anyone but the Palestinians themselves.

Fifty years later, in 1986, Hannah Siniora, then editor of the East Jerusalem Arabic Daily, called for Pales-tinian civic disobedience by boycotting Israel-made cigarettes. This led to a full-scale Palestinian boycott of Israeli soap, food, water, clothes and other consumer goods.

The 1987-1993 First Intifada was largely conducted non-violently. Palestinians held mass public demonstra-tions, refused to pay taxes, and sought out local alternatives to Israeli facilities. Community leader Mubarak Awad initiated olive tree planting on Palestinian land about to be confiscated by Israeli settlers. Israeli law prohibited any construction on land dedicated to growing fruit. Awad used non-violent resistance, and Israel’s own laws, to challenge the encroaching settlements.

Currently, and especially since construction of the separation Wall began on June 16th 2002, Palestinian villages across the West Bank have cooperated in non-violent resistance. The communities of Jayyous, Budrus, Bil’in, Ni’lin and Umm Salamonah have all non-violently resisted the Wall being built around them. Weekly non-violent demonstrations against the Wall are held in the cities of Bil’in and Nihlin (north of Ramallah) which bring together Palestinians and Israelis, as well international activists.

The Logic of Non-Violent Resistance

The logic of a non-violent strategy to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is simple. Turning this knowledge into a practical campaign effective in achieveing Palestinian goals is much more difficult. Practically, a non-violent strategy allows for a broader and therefore larger participation among the citizenry than armed conflict does. This was true in the First Intifada – largely credited with empowering civil society, women, as well as the young and old. The players in the Second Intifada, on the other hand, were restricted to their ability and willingness to fight violently.

Secondly, by unilaterally removing violence from one side of the equation, there is the possibility of transforming the perception of victimhood within Israel and the international community, which could in turn affect policy. Looking back through this book, it is clear that Palestinians and Israelis live in a rather assymmetric world, and that this conflict disproportionately affects Palestinians. Yet in the minds of Western Europeans and Americans especially, the perception of Palestinians has been shaped more by the sporadic acts of terror, rather than by the accumulation of suffering wrought by occupation.

It is assumed, but not guaranteed, that a non-violent stategy would lead to a decrease in the cycle of death and injury. This sadly could be both bad and good for the Palestinian cause. A decrease in death and carnage is likely to coincide with a sharp decrease in media attention – precisely what is needed most to inspire change in opinion and policy.

Only a strategy that is assertive, coordinated, inclusive, creative, and one that is more and more adept at creating its own media can hope to succeed in making lots of noise without firing any bullets. There have been powerful, if not controversial, attempts by isolated villages to begin building this movement. It is time now to learn from their experiences and begin coordinating a national non-violent strategy.

Israel’s Response to Non-Violence

Israeli, Palestinian and international human rights organizations routinely catalogue, and often film, Israel’s response to non-violent actions. The response usually consists of using overwhelming force to disburse crowds.

Most typically, Israel employs tear gas, concussion grenades and rubber bullets to do so, but on many documented oc-casions they have employed live ammunition, and most re-cently have begun showering protesters with a mixture of sewage water and chemicals from nearby settlements. The saddest part of this response is the effect that it has upon the non-violence movement in general. The fact that protesters have been literally showered in sewage, beaten and sometimes killed in the daily or weekly events, reaffirms the notion amongst those most skeptical of a peaceful strategy that ‘Israel only responds to violence’.

This perception is further strengthened by the lack of accountability laid upon those soldiers and their commanders who routinely sidestep the law in their use of force. Rarely, if ever, has anyone been punished; and never have these punishments made their way up the ranks or into the realm of those who design policies. This lack of accountability has endowed soldiers with a sense of immunity from their actions; a perception which no doubt adds to their willingness to utilize force – even when unneccessary.

This last summer the small village of Ni’lin north of Ramallah began to organize weekly, and sometimes daily demonstations against the encroaching wall. On July 29th, the ten year old unarmed Ahmed Hassan Yusef Musa was struck in the head by a rubber bullet and killed at one such demonstration. The following day, at Ahmed’s funeral – turned demonstration, 19 year old Yusuf Ahmad Amira was shot dead by the IDF. Neither case has resulted in punishment.

This is the same village where a 17 year old girl Salaam Kanan was able to capture video footage of a bound and blindfolded Palestinian man being shot at point blank range by a soldier a few feet from his commanding officer. This particular case received alot of attention; however, Israeli, Palestinian and international human rights organizations insist that many more incidents like this take place when no cameras are present.

BACKGROUND:
In April 2002, Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield by invading the Palestinian
refugee camp of Jenin, south of Nazareth. In this operation which lasted about 8 days and followed a suicide bomb attack on the Israeli town of Netanya. Israel deployed 30,000 reserve soldiers against a camp population of 33,000 refugees. It sealed the camp and refused to allow journalists and human rights organisation from entering leading to a rapid rise in rumours that a major massacre had taken place. Various casualty figures circulated ranging from 50 to 500 Palestinian civilians and fighters were killed. On the Israeli side, 23 IDF soldiers died. By the end of this operation, more than 10% of the camp was levelled. The UN fact-finding mission was never allowed in.

THE DOCUMENTARY:
Mohammad Bakri joined a non-violent demonstration during the invasion at which a
fellow actor standing nearby was shot and wounded by the IDF. This inspired Bakri to secretly enter the camp soon after the Operation ended and to interview its residents, young and old, some of whom witnessed some of the killing. The result of his work is Jenin Jenin a documentary which tells the story of the Palestinians of Jenin who would otherwise not have been heard by the international media due to the sealing of the camp. The documentary has no narrator, no voice-over, no guide and no commentary by the film maker. Jenin Jenin is dedicated by Bakri to its producer Iyad Samoudi who
was killed by the IDF in the Jenin Governorate shortly after the filming was completed.

THE COURT CASE:
After three screenings in Israel, the Israeli Film Ratings Board banned the film. The Tel Aviv and Jerusalem Cinematheques showed the film despite the ban. Bakri took the ban to the Israeli Supreme Court and won. On appeal, the Supreme Court ruling was stayed, but in August 2004, it reaffirmed its ruling stating that the Film Rating Board has "no monopoly over the truth"

In February 2005, five IDF soldiers who took part in Operation Defensive Shield filed a suit for defamation of character against Bakri. These five soldiers were neither mentioned nor shown in the film. The Judge in the Petah Tikva District Court dismissed the soldiers' case stating that although the film did slander the IDF generally, the five soldiers were not personally slandered. The soldiers' attorney said later that he would consider appealing to the High Court of Justice.

In January 2010, Haaretz reported that Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, who is
retiring from his post in this month, stated his support for the five soldiers in their appeal.

After a meeting with the fibve soldiers and their families, Mazuz acknowledged that
Bakri did not defame the general public but only a particular group. If the Supreme Court accepts that position, then it would enable each soldier to open criminal proceedings against the filmmaker. Mazuz's joining this civic process with the soldiers individually, raises the question, according to Bakri of "why such a decision has come so late?"

IN DEFENSE OF BAKRI:
Jenin Jenin was awarded Best Film at The Carthage International Film Festival
International Prize for Mediterranean Documentary Filmmaking and reporting.

Mohammad Bakri will be awarded the Free Speech Bear Award at this year's
Berlin Film Festival: The Berlinale.

The Mohammad Bakri Defense Committee insists that "the importance of this case
reaches beyond Bakri as an individual" highlighting the repression of Palestinian self expression.

Choosing to show the Jenin residents' story is not grounds for censorship.

The Committee further adds that "for his artistic integrity and his focus on the
experiences and narratives of his fellow Palestinians, Mohammad Bakri faces the
potential of financial ruin in the face of spurious legal charges and dubious claims of
defamation".

Against the backdrop of an illegal occupation of 4.5 million Palestinians in The West
Bank and East Jerusalem, and a further 1.5 million in the Gaza Strip, the voice of
Mohammad Bakri rises against the attempt, within Israel, to silence his artistic
expression. At personal risk to himself and to his family, Bakri has been fighting alone, amongst all filmmakers, to encourage debate, free choice, and independent artistic creativity. As one of the greatest actors and filmmakers in Israel-Palestine today, Bakri represents the struggle of his people to attain freedom, justice and equality.

In a rare tribute to this personal conviction, it was decided to honour Mohammad Bakri with the Free Speech Award at the Berlinale 2010 through Panorama which showcases new films by established directors. Panorama was established by the well known German Film Director Wieland Speck in 1992. It is in his revolutionary spirit that the award will be presented to Mohammad Bakri.

The jury include: Hiam Abbas (The Lemon Tree), Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine),
John Grieson (Fig Tree), Udi Aloni (Forgiveness).

(editor's note: Bakri's site is down, but you can send donations to his defense expenses here: Al-Jisser Group
P. O. Box 255
New York, NY 10013)

“We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change or resistance. Small acts, when multiplied by many people, can transform the world”

“If we remember those times and places–and there are so many–where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

Professor Howard Zinn (1922-2010) 

 Hundreds of people from around the World have signed an Online Petition http://www.petitiononline.com/ssfpcrc/petition.html in the opening days of an international effort to achieve basic Civil Rights for Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon.

We Petition because we believe that alongside Statehood, and the exigency of lifting the criminal siege of Gaza, immediately granting the right to work and the right to purchase a home to Palestinians in Lebanon, after 62 years of indignity and degradation, is a fundamental imperative of basic morality and justice.

We Petition because as British journalist Robert Fisk wrote in the UK Independent on January 16, 2010 after a camp visit: “ The Sabra and Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camps are repulsive, obscene, outrageous, filthy, stinking slums and a place of such squalor that the gorge rises that human beings even live there.” The reason why Lebanon’s 12 Palestinian Refugee camps are the worst of the 58 camps in the Middle East is due primarily to the fact that unlike occupied Palestine, Jordan, and Syria, Palestinians in Lebanon do not possess the most basic civil rights

We Petition because many of us are from countries that continue to aid and abet this degradation, for which like each of our fellow citizens we bare personal responsibility and feel shame, as we contemplate the founding principles of our nations that we cherish being sullied by silence and inaction.

We Petition because Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees are today, as has been the case for 62 years, systematically deprived of basic rights guaranteed by the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and because the Palestinian refugees are the only refugee population in the world excluded from the international protection accorded by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Statute and the Refugee Convention. At the end of 2008, at least 7.1 million Palestinians, representing 67 percent of the entire Palestinian population (10.6 million) worldwide were displaced persons. Among them are 6.6 million refugees and 427,000 IDPs. This makes Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) the largest and longest-standing case of displaced persons in the world today.

We Petition because the Lebanese government, in particular, as well as the broader international community, have the obligation to respect and ensure the full range of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of Palestinians living in Lebanon, without discrimination. These rights include the rights to work, to education, to the highest attainable standard of health, to adequate housing and an adequate standard of living.

We Petition because we want to twin with every Palestinian Refugee in Lebanon and to pay heartfelt condolences to the families of every Lebanese who died during the several aggressions launched against them. Each Petition signature links with our cherished friend, Badriah Haij of Shatila Refugee Camp, now ill and preparing for death and to meet the Prophets. Sixty two years ago she walked for two days into Lebanon at Maron al Ras from her village of Al Amoka near Safad, Palestine. Badriah’s fervent death wish, and that of her daughter Zeinab and her siblings, is to have someone bring a handful of dirt from her family homestead for her children to sprinkle into her casket in Lebanon until, as Badriah believes, her remains will be returned to Palestine and she can rest in peace. Each signature links with Master Ali Hamise a young man of 11 years old who happened upon a delegation of visiting Europeans and Americans recently and they engaged the ill glad youngster near the garbage pile on Rue Sabra. Ali stunned the visitors with his knowledge of Palestine as he recited much history and the names of nearly 150 destroyed villages in occupied Palestine that he insisted must be rebuilt “so people can go home.” “How could da kinder know all that?” a crusty German gentleman asked.

And each signature links in solidarity with more than 7 million Palestinians in the Diaspora, many forced to disperse to survive and whose Right of Return is inerasably engraved in international law.

We Petition because International law requires that civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights must be accorded the Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon without discrimination. Lebanon, like all Countries, must ensure that any discrimination against her hosted Palestinian Refugees is eliminated. The discretion given to countries in the extent to which they must ensure economic rights for Refugees does not justify restricting access to the right to work on the basis of preserving the right to return, as some in Lebanon have argued. Lebanon is obliged not to interpret the distinction between nationals and non-nationals to undermine their obligations under international human rights law.

For example, Lebanese Presidential Decree 11614 of 1969, as modified by Decree 296 of 2001, prohibits people who do "not carry a citizenship issued by a recognized state" from securing legal title to housing and land in Lebanon. This draconian legislation specifically targets Lebanon’s Palestinian Refugees although they are not specified in the Decree. It means that Palestinian refugees, because virtually all stateless people in Lebanon are Palestinian refugees, and most Palestinian refugees are stateless: “No real right to housing, land or property of any kind may be acquired by any person that does not carry a citizenship issued by a recognized state, or by any person if such acquisition contradicts with the provisions of the constitution relating to the prohibition of Settlement (tawteen)." Article 1 of the amended Decree 296.

This law is in direct violation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) ratified by Lebanon on November 24, 2008, as well as other treaty obligation and numerous provisions of customary international law.

We Petition because the legal prohibition on Palestinian refugees in Lebanon registering legal title to housing and land greatly diminishes their chance of enjoying security of tenure outside the camps, leaving most of them with little choice but to remain in the camps and gatherings. Lebanese law also prevents Palestinian refugees from inheriting housing or land, and from registering real estate, even if they have been paying for it in installments for years.

We Petition because we believe Lebanon’s Parliament will heed a sincere broadly based international urgent appeal to fulfill the unique Lebanese role in the region and exhibit its gifted people’s deeply ingrained humanitarianism. And because courageous Lebanese officials working for the enactment of legislation granting civil rights to Palestinian Refugees urge us to do so, that they may demonstrate international support for and expectation of, correcting this grave injustice that has also diminished Lebanon’s standing among the community of Nations. To its great credit Lebanon’s new Parliament appears ready to seriously consider the enactment of basic civil rights for its Palestinian Refugees including the right to work and the right to own a home, have a recognized ID document and to move freely inside Lebanon and outside the camps without fear of harassment or arbitrary arrest.

We Petition to give Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees a feeling of hope and power that many are in danger of losing and to convince them that ultimately power rests with the people themselves and, as has often happened in history they can use it as blacks, women and the anti-war movement have done in American history and that the anti-war movement must reconstitute and do again.

To paraphrase one of my Professors at Boston University, the late Howard Zinn, who later was also the inaugural speaker at the Boston University School of Law Seminar-Forum, which he helped me establish during the Vietnam war, (in order to bring guest speakers on social issues and enliven our law school curriculum, top heavy as it was, by way too much Corporate Taxation, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Estate planning etc) however dire the conditions, however many will advise in all sincerity that those in power will not allow even the most basic civil rights for Palestinians in Lebanon we cannot give up the game before all the cards, including those from a multitude of supporters around the world, have been played.

The obstacles may seem invincible and also our opponents in their determination to hold onto the status quo. But that apparent power has, again and again, proved vulnerable in history to human qualities less measurable than entrenched political power such as moral fervor, determination, unity, organization, sacrifice, wit, ingenuity, courage, and persistence. No rational analysis and calculation of the imbalance of power need deter people who are persuaded that the cause for civil rights for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon is just.

Please join us!

Sign with us!

Distribute with us!

Post with us!

Make history with us!

Let’s do this together!

Please support the enactment of basic civil rights for our Palestinian sisters and brothers in Lebanon in the sure knowledge that when we succeed, and succeed we shall, you will personally have improved the World.

Contact: palestinecivilrightscampaign@gmail.com

Website: www.palestinecivilrightscampaign.org
Palestine Civil Rights Campaign-Lebanon

PLEASE SIGN HERE!

http://www.petitiononline.com/ssfpcrc/petition.html

"Affixing my name to this petition expresses my wish to personally "twin" in solidarity with one of Lebanon's Palestinian refugees as they and their Lebanese hosts continue to work and prepare for their Return."

Franklin P. Lamb, LLM,PhD
Director, Americans Concerned for
Middle East Peace, Wash.DC-Beirut

Board Member, The Sabra Shatila Foundation and the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, Beirut-Washington DC
Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp
Beirut Mobile: +961-70-497-804
fplamb@gmail.com

This is the video of the press conference (in Arabic) that I took, where some the questions, including mine, were not fully answered. I was also told that there were some factual errors including that she was taken by Caritas car to UNHCR and not by taxi as Caritas head has claimed.

—–

The Lebanese General Security Office (GSO), the official state body in charge of entry, stay and exit of foreigners, is coming under heavy fire following its decision to maintain the arbitrary detention of Iraqi refugee Yousra El-Amiri.

On 11 December 2009, a Lebanese judge in Zahle, Cynthia Kasarji, order the immediate release of Yousra who has been arbitrarily for over 6 months, following her illegal entry to Lebanon.

Yousra fled to Lebanon with her brother in May 2009, through Syria, following the murder of their brother and her husband by armed militias. The GSO detained them on basis of illegal entry, and a Lebanese judge ordered their imprisonment for one month – a sentenced which ended on 21 June, 2009. But the GSO did not release them ever since, seeking an impossible repatriation. Her brother also remains in prison till date.

While in prison, UNHCR gave them refugee status, as they would be killed if they return to Iraq. Lebanon is not a signatory of the 1951 Refugee convention, and UNHCR is operating in Beirut and giving refugee status to Iraqis based on an Memorandum of Understanding with the GSO.

The court decision was hailed by a leading human rights activists as one of the seven most important court decisions in 2009 as it dares challenge the established illegal practice of arbitrary detention of foreigners who have finished their sentence. On the other side, the General Director of the GSO, Wafi Gezini, stated to Al-Akhbar newspaper that the judge who gave her decision “did not know what she was doing” thus dealing an unprecedented blow to the Lebanese judiciary. Omar Nashbeh, leading Lebanese journalists and advisor to the minister of interior on human rights affairs, asked in Al-Akhbar “Is this how the judiciary is strengthened and immunized as stated in the Hariri government ministerial statement?”

Al-Akhbar added that Lebanese Minister of Interior, Ziad Baroud, had issued directives ordering the implementation of the court decision immediately. But the GSO has not abided by his directives, a case of a state employee refusing to abide by the minister’s orders.

In an amazing twist in this affair, the General Security, to ease the pressure on it, declared to Al-Akhbar (Saturday 17 January, 2010) that they have decided to transfer Yousra to Caritas Migrant’s shelter. The media and the lawyer were informed that Yousra was set free on Saturday, in what seems to be a maneuver to calm down public opinion.

Effectively, Caritas Migrant Center has accepted to keep Yousra detained against a judge decision to set her free.

According to NGO sources exclusive to Migrant-Rights.org, this is not the first time Caritas shelters are used by the GSO. In principle, they are destined to be used as shelters of trafficked women. But in a previous similar case, an Iraqi woman refugee – now resettled to Sweden – was also arbitrarily detained at Caritas Migrant shelter or safe house and only set free once UNHCR got her ticket to Sweden.

Today, Monday, January 18, 2010, Caritas Migrant chauffeur took Yousra to UNHCR office and is currently seeking to bring her back to the Caritas’ detention facility. Several rights groups including Frontiers Association are demonstrating to prevent handing over of Yousra to Caritas.

Also, Caritas are organizing today a gathering at the Martyrs square in Downtown Beirut in support of the Migrant Workers in Lebanon, and a candle vigil under the theme: “Shed light on Migrants’ Rights”. Several dozens of human rights activists have decided to attend the event with banners demanding
1. The release of Yousra El-Amiri
2. To stop the use of Caritas Migrant centers are arbitrary detention facilities for the GSO
3. To end the practice of arbitrary detention by the General Security

Wissam Salibi, for Migrant-Rights.org
Author of EthiopianSuicides.blogspot.com

source: http://www.migrant-rights.org/2010/01/18/lebanese-general-security-maintain-arbitrary-detention-of-iraqi-refugee-against-judge-decision-and-moi-orders/

On 11 December 2009, a Lebanese judge in Zahle, Cynthia Kasarji, order the immediate release of Yousra who has been arbitrarily for over 6 months, following her illegal entry to Lebanon.

Yousra fled to Lebanon with her brother in May 2009, through Syria, following the murder of their brother and her husband by armed militias. The GSO detained them on basis of illegal entry, and a Lebanese judge ordered their imprisonment for one month – a sentenced which ended on 21 June, 2009. But the GSO did not release them ever since, seeking an impossible repatriation. Her brother also remains in prison till date.

While in prison, UNHCR gave them refugee status, as they would be killed if they return to Iraq. Lebanon is not a signatory of the 1951 Refugee convention, and UNHCR is operating in Beirut and giving refugee status to Iraqis based on an Memorandum of Understanding with the GSO.

The court decision was hailed by a leading human rights activists as one of the seven most important court decisions in 2009 as it dares challenge the established illegal practice of arbitrary detention of foreigners who have finished their sentence. On the other side, the General Director of the GSO, Wafi Gezini, stated to Al-Akhbar newspaper that the judge who gave her decision “did not know what she was doing” thus dealing an unprecedented blow to the Lebanese judiciary. Omar Nashbeh, leading Lebanese journalists and advisor to the minister of interior on human rights affairs, asked in Al-Akhbar “Is this how the judiciary is strengthened and immunized as stated in the Hariri government ministerial statement?”

Al-Akhbar added that Lebanese Minister of Interior, Ziad Baroud, had issued directives ordering the implementation of the court decision immediately. But the GSO has not abided by his directives, a case of a state employee refusing to abide by the minister’s orders.

In an amazing twist in this affair is that the General Security, to ease the pressure on it, declared to Al-Akhbar (Saturday 17 January, 2010) that they have decided to transfer Yousra to Caritas Migrant’s shelter. The media and the lawyer were informed that Yousra was set free on Saturday, in what seems to be a maneuver to calm down public opinion.

Effectively, Caritas Migrant Center has accepted to keep Yousra arbitrarily detained and incommunicado in its shelters (no one really knows where Caritas Migrant’s shelter is located, whereas location of GSO jails are publicly known).

According to NGO sources exclusive to Migrant-Rights.org, this is not the first time Caritas shelters are used as GSO prisons. In principle, they are destined to be used as shelters of trafficked women. But in a previous similar case, an Iraqi woman refugee – now resettled to Sweden – was also arbitrarily detained at Caritas Migrant shelter or safe house and only set free once UNHCR got her ticket to Sweden. Caritas employees were de facto jailers and she was taken from Caritas to the UNHCR by a Caritas chauffeur and in a Caritas car.

Today, Monday, January 18, 2010, Caritas Migrant chauffeur took Yousra to UNHCR office and is currently seeking to bring her back to the Caritas’ detention facility. Several rights groups including Frontiers Association are demonstrating to prevent handing over of Yousra to Caritas.

Also, Caritas are organizing today a gathering at the Martyrs square in Downtown Beirut in support of the Migrant Workers in Lebanon, and a candle vigil under the theme: “Shed light on Migrants’ Rights”. Several dozens of human rights activists have decided to attend the event with banners demanding
1. The release of Yousra El-Amiri
2. To stop the use of Caritas Migrant centers are arbitrary detention facilities for the GSO
3. To end the practice of arbitrary detention by the General Security

To be continued.

Facebook group: End Arbitrary Detention by the General Security and at Caritas shelters

Wissam Salibi, for Migrant-Rights.org  
Author of EthiopianSuicides.blogspot.com