Shawan Jabarin, General Director of the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq has had an ongoing travel ban placed on him by the Israeli authorities.
The
Alternative Information Center (AIC) demands that the Israeli authorities allow
Shawan Jabarin, a leading human rights activist and General Director of the
Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq (www.alhaq.org), to travel outside
the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), and to unconditionally and
immediately rescind the travel ban currently in place against him.
Jabarin,
a long-time human rights activist, has not been permitted to leave the OPT
since March 2006. Israel maintains that “security reasons” preclude Jabarin
from leaving the West Bank, although Jabarin has not been charged with any
offence and no information about the “security reasons” has been provided to
Jabarin or his legal team, making it impossible to legally challenge this ban.
For
over two decades, Jabarin has acted to protect and promote the human rights of
the Palestinian people. He began as a fieldworker in the southern West Bank for
Al-Haq, later acquiring an MA in human rights from Galway University in Ireland
before becoming the General Director of Al-Haq. Jabarin is also a veteran
activist for a just peace and joint Palestinian-Israeli-international struggle
for an end to the occupation in accordance with international law. Jabarin,
like thousands of other Palestinians, was on several occasions placed in
administrative detention—without charges or trial—by the Israeli authorities.
Jabarin
has petitioned the Israeli High Court to lift the travel ban, and a hearing on
this is scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday, 3 July. To date the High Court has
rejected two previous petitions in 2006 and 2007 in this matter.
The
travel ban has prevented Jabarin from attending important international
conferences, thus negatively impacting his internationally recognized right to
work, in addition to his rights to freedom of movement and unhampered ability to work.
AIC
members will attend the hearing in solidarity with Shawan and to demonstrate
that Palestinians and Israelis can struggle together for a just peace on the
basis of international law and common values of justice, equality and community
involvement.
