Travel bans violate freedom of movement

Adri Nieuwhof and Jeff Handmaker



Despite international media attention and considerable diplomatic pressure from the Netherlands, Israel did not allow the general director of the Palestinian organization Al-Haq, Shawan Jabarin, to travel to the Netherlands to receive the prestigious Dutch Geuzenpenning award for human rights defenders on 13 March 2009. Israel's travel ban on Jabarin and other human rights defenders on the basis of secret evidence violates principles for a fair trial and the basic human right of free movement, resembling the behavior of the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Al-Haq is an independent, Palestinian non-governmental human rights organization based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Ramallah. The Geuzenpenning honors the historic resistance group, the Geuzen, who fought the occupying German army in the Netherlands during the Second World War. The Geuzenpenning award keeps alive the ideals of resisting oppression and promoting and maintaining democracy as well as heightening awareness in the Netherlands and globally of all forms of dictatorship, discrimination and racism.

The Israeli government has forbidden Shawan Jabarin from traveling abroad ever since he was appointed director of Al-Haq in 2006. Before his appointment, Jabarin traveled to many countries, including Ireland, where he received a master's degree in human rights in 2005.

The Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Verhagen reportedly put a lot of pressure on his Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni, though clearly to no avail. In a hearing before the Israeli high court that violated several universal principles of a fair trial, a hearing which Jabarin also could not attend because of his confinement to the West Bank, the panel of three judges once again revealed its impotence in the face of absurdly unsupportable "security" concerns. After dismissing everyone from the courtroom except for the Israeli government lawyer and a representative of the Israeli General Security Service (GSS), which presented evidence that was never disclosed to Jabarin or his lawyers, the judges decided to maintain his travel ban. The cryptic ruling of the court mentioned that:

"he fact cannot be ignored that the West Bank is a closed military zone, entry and exit from which require a permit. The right to freedom of movement is examined in view of special legislation for the area. ... The material pointing to Jabarin's involvement in the activity of terrorist entities is concrete and reliable material. No permission to leave the country is no punishment for his forbidden activities but due to relevant security considerations."

read on...
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10406.shtml

In NY synagogue, Israeli settler leader calls for assassination of Abbas-- and tax-deductible contributions


Exclusive report from Mondoweiss: In a speech at a New York synagogue Wednesday night, Nadia Matar, a leader of the Israeli settlers' group "Women in Green," called for the assassination of Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, as a way of bringing peace to Israel.

Just as Churchill understood that in order to bring peace to Europe, "he had to destroy the Nazi beast," Matar explained, "today we must destroy all the terrorist organizations. We must kill all the terrorist leaders, starting with Mahmoud Abbas and all others...Nobody had any moral qualms at destroying the Nazi regime. We have to abolish the Oslo Agreements, there's no difference between the PA, the Islamic Jihad, the Hamas, whatever names you have, they're all terrorists and we cannot have peace with them."

Matar then urged the crowd at the Safra Synagogue on the Upper East Side to make tax-deductible donations to Women in Green by writing checks to the Central Fund of Israel.

As our site has reported, the Central Fund is a U.S. charity group that supports Jewish settler militias. It has received donations from leading figures in the American Jewish community, including James Tisch, the ceo of Loews, Michael Milken the banker/philanthropist, Alan C. (Ace) Greenberg, the former ceo of Bear Stearns, and actor Kirk Douglas. The Fund is housed at a fabric store on Sixth Avenue called Marcus Fabrics and administered by Arthur and Hadassah Marcus, who live in New York, and their son Jay, who lives in Efrat, the West Bank settlement where Nadia Matar also lives.

Matar, who was born in Belgium and moved to Israel 20 years ago, thanked the Safra Synagogue rabbi, Elie Abadie, who is associated with Yeshiva University, for hosting her visit. It was her third appearance in a tour of the U.S. to build support for the Jewish colonists of the West Bank.

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/03/in-ny-synagogue-settler-leader-calls-for-assassination-of-abbas-and-taxdeductible-contributions-to-s.html


For those who doubt, here's a recording.

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/03/nadia-matar-recording.html

Well, fine. But then no surprise when war rules apply.

You'll deserve to be massacred for not going along with Israel's attempt to erase you?

Is that your personal belief or the belief of the IDF?


Regardless of you absurd rantings, do you deny the FACTS of the article?

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. As the court said


"he fact cannot be ignored that the West Bank is a closed military zone, entry and exit from which require a permit. The right to freedom of movement is examined in view of special legislation for the area. ... The material pointing to Jabarin's involvement in the activity of terrorist entities is concrete and reliable material. No permission to leave the country is no punishment for his forbidden activities but due to relevant security considerations."

It is not anything like SA aparthied as the article tries to claim.
What kind of human rights advocate belongs to such a group.



There is nothing wrong with such restrictions due to legitimate security concerns, if there are none then it is wrong but the Israeli Supreme court looked at the issue and evidence and said it was legitimate. The Israeli SC like our own is a fair and just institution that is no puppet of the government and frequently rules against the government.

Have you got any proof that he's currently a member of the PFLP? Also, as you would have even less knowledge of what the court was told, as it was a closed court and even Jabarin and his lawyers weren't told what the arguments were against him, how is it that yr making out that you know what the reasons were for banning him from travelling?

He has admitted to his involvement with that group and was convicted and served a prison sentence for said involvement.

Whether he is currently a member or not is another question.

Personally I think the travel ban should be lifted and he ought to have been able to travel to The Netherlands to receive his award.

After all, the travel ban is current. Also, if he was a member of the PFLP, when was he a member? It's just these travel bans seem to have been imposed on him from 2006 onwards...

We agree about the travel ban and that it should be lifted. It very much comes across as churlish not to allow him not to travel....

He was arrested in 1985 and he admitted in an interview to being a member while he was a college student in the 1980s.

He denies that he is a member currently. If Israel has evidence to the contrary, they ought to present it.

That evidence against him is being kept secret to the point where even he wasn't allowed to know what it was....

It's unconscionable that this human rights activist is held under lock and key.

Doesn't responding to something that we're opposed to with similar behaviour make us just as bad as what we're opposed to?

The effect on me of seeing things like what's been done in this case and also for example the refusal of Israel to grant visas to Palestinian students is to realise how hypocritical its army of hasbara drones are when they start whining the second anyone mentions boycotting Israel.

I don't believe there will be pressure on the gov't to change those positions until Israelis citizenare are forced to miss academic conferences and accept awards via webcam.

Irony is not much of a motivator for a bureaucracy.

But even if it was possible to do it, forcing Israeli citizens to miss academic conferences and to accept awards via webcam isn't the way to put pressure on the Israeli govt. Like I said, it just makes us hypocrites for inflicting the very thing we're opposed to on other people. And when it comes to an effective way of pressuring the Israeli govt to change its position, the only real effective way is to cease US military aid to Israel, something that I totally support happening...

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

We are writing to protest the arbitrary travel restrictions that your government has placed on Mr. Shawan Jabarin, the General Director of the Ramallah-based human rights organization, Al Haq. Over the past year, beginning on March 23, 2006, Israeli security officials have refused on several occasions to allow Mr. Jabarin to make trips abroad, in response to invitations from international organizations, for professional purposes. Our organization works closely with Al Haq, and with Mr. Jabarin in particular. We regard him, as do many other international and regional human rights organizations, as one of the most professional and accomplished human rights activists in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We ask that you take steps to ensure that your government removes these restrictions without delay.

Since 1999 and prior to March 23, 2006, Mr. Jabarin traveled abroad on eight different occasions. In February 2006, the authorities permitted Mr. Jabarin to leave the West Bank and travel abroad. One of these trips was to attend a conference in Morocco. On that occasion the authorities responded that their inspection raised no concerns that might justify preventing Mr. Jabarin from traveling.

Although nothing in Mr. Jabarin’s circumstances has changed since that time, when he attempted to cross from the West Bank to Jordan on March 23, 2006, the authorities there issued him a police order to present himself three days later, on March 26, at the Etsion Liaison Office, which is between Hebron and Bethlehem. Mr. Jabarin appeared at Etsion at the specified time on March 26, where he was made to wait outside for four hours in uncomfortably cold weather. At that point, when he refused to comply with what he regarded as a humiliating request to strip the clothes from his torso before entering the compound, an Israeli official told him to go home but refused to return his identification documents. Without such documents, as you know, Palestinian residents of the West Bank cannot legally travel even within that territory. Despite repeated efforts to retrieve his ID, Israeli authorities returned it to him only in July 2006, with the assistance of the Israeli human rights organization HaMoked.

In October 2006, Israeli authorities again refused to grant Mr. Jabarin permission to travel to attend a conference in Spain. Yet again, in December 2006, the authorities denied him permission to attend a conference in Egypt organized by the Christian Aid organization. Mr. Jabarin filed an appeal in response to this denial, and the Israeli High Court rejected his request, apparently based on submissions from the authorities that neither Mr. Jabarin nor his counsel were permitted to see.

Mr. Prime Minister, under the circumstances it appears that the government’s repeated refusal to allow Mr. Jabarin to travel abroad constitutes an arbitrary and unlawful infringement on his right to freedom of movement, including the right to leave his own country, which is guaranteed in Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Israel ratified in 1991. Although human rights law permits restrictions on freedom of movement for security reasons, the restrictions must have a clear legal basis, be limited to what is necessary, and be proportionate to the threat. As stated by the United Nations Human Rights Committee in its General Comment 27, any limits on freedom of movement cannot reverse the relation between right and restriction, between norm and exception.

Such restrictions are particularly egregious when applied against the leader of a prominent human rights organization and who is himself recognized widely for his record in defending and promoting human rights in a scrupulous and impartial manner. Restrictions such as those imposed on Mr. Jabarin unfairly and arbitrarily impair his ability and the ability of his organization to raise in international forums human rights concerns in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

For this reason, we reiterate our request that you take immediate steps to ensure that these restrictions against Mr. Jabarin are lifted immed
iately. Mr. Jabarin has been invited to travel to Geneva to the Human Rights Council from March 18-30 and to the Congress of the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) in Portugal on April 19. We urge you to guarantee that he is able to attend these important professional events.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter. We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Sarah Leah Whitson
Executive Director
Middle East and North Africa division

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2007/04/29/letter-prime-minister-ehud-olmert-shawan-jabarin