Ref: 128/2021
Date: 23 Oct 2021
Press release,
ICSPR: The Israeli decision towards human rights organizations is a true reflection of an Israeli policy that contradicts the human rights system.
The International Commission to Support Palestinians’ Rights (ICSPR) follows up with great concern and condemnation the decision of the Israeli Minister of War, issued Friday, October 22, 2021, to classify six Palestinian human rights and civil organizations as terrorist organizations.
The decision targeted: Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Defense for Children International – Palestine, Al-Haq Foundation, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, the Union of Arab Women Committees, and the Bissan Center for Research and Development.
ICSPR expresses its solidarity with the targeted human rights and civil organizations, and with all human rights defenders, and pledges to address the bodies and organizations of the international community to report the violations, policies and procedures that violate the international protection for organizations and human rights defenders in the occupied Palestinian territories, and stresses that the Israeli measures are part of a systematic policy to target human rights organizations that constitute a mainstay for Palestinians in transferring their daily suffering and the crimes and violations committed against them. ICSPR warns of the repercussions of this dangerous decision on the work of civil society organizations. Therefore:
- ICSPR believes that the successive Israeli measures against civil and human rights organizations and human rights activists contradict international law and the most basic international standards protecting human rights defenders and organizations.
- ICSPR considers the Israeli decision an attack on the international and national human rights movement alike, and it reflects the extent of the Israeli disregard for the international human rights system.
- ICSPR calls on the international community, and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders in particular, to intervene immediately to protect human rights organizations and human rights defenders in the occupied Palestinian territories
