The rights of civil society members in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory are being violated by authorities in all areas through harassment, threats, arrests, interrogations, arbitrary detention, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment, according to a report to the Human Rights Council issued today by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.
The report examined attacks, restrictions and harassment of civil society actors in Israel, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory including East Jerusalem. It found that the majority of violations are being committed by Israeli authorities as part of the Israeli Government’s goal of ensuring and enshrining its permanent occupation at the expense of the rights of the Palestinian people.
The report found that the Israeli Government has increasingly restricted civic space through a strategy of delegitimizing and silencing civil society. This includes criminalizing Palestinian civil society organizations and their members by labelling them as “terrorists,” pressuring and threatening institutions that give a platform for civil society discourse, actively lobbying donors, and implementing measures intended to cut sources of funding and support.
This strategy is being implemented in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory against Israeli and Palestinian civil society organizations and activists, and internationally against international advocates of Palestinian rights.
Read the article in The National Tribune.