Rights and Accountability

Since his detention in 1993, Mahmoud Issa Moussa has been held in isolation in different Israeli prisons. A period of long-term isolation began for Mahmoud in 2002 and continues until today. This month the period of his isolation has been extended again with six months.

Badil center responds to the Israeli high court’s rejection of a challenge to the racist “citizenship law”: “This illustrates once more the Israeli self portrait as an exclusively Jewish state with a different set of rights for its Jewish and non-Jewish (mainly Palestinian) inhabitants.”

Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) today denied a report in the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronot, carried also on its English website Ynet, that Turkey was to drop its legal actions and lawsuits against Israelis it holds responsible for the attack on the Gaza-bound ship Mavi Marmara on 31 May 2010 which killed 9 people and injured dozens.

The case of Ziyad Yaghi and Omar Aly Hassan of North Carolina raises questions about the use of preemptive prosecution to get convictions in the vast majority of domestic terrorism cases.

A video and written account shows two Israelis, “Shai” and “Doron” being subjected to the kind of abuse by Israeli soldiers more usually reserved for Palestinians.

Israel has banned family visits to Gazan prisoners since June 2007. Israel tries to bargain about this right with the Red Cross, according to Palestinian Human Rights organization Addameer. This is unacceptable and Addameer calls for international action to put pressure on the Israeli Government.

Ameer Makhoul writes from Gilboa jail about Israeli policies that aim to disconnect the Palestinian prisoners from their families, friends, and solidarity people. He calls for an international fact-finding mission of human rights organizations.

An Israeli gunboat attacked the Oliva today off the shores of Gaza, according to two crew members, injuring the Palestinian captain. The Oliva, a boat operated by the Civil Peace Service Gaza (CPSGAZA) accompanies Gaza fishermen to sea to monitor frequent Israeli attacks and harassment of Palestinian fishing boats.

The One Democratic State Group in Gaza has issued this statement:

We, Palestinians of Gaza, 3 years on from the 22-day long massacre in Israel’s operation ‘Cast Lead’, are calling on international civil society to make 2012 the year when solidarity with us in Palestine captures the spark of the revolutions around the Arab world and never looks back. On this anniversary we demand an international liberation movement that eventually leads to just that, liberation for us Palestinians from 63 years of brutal military occupation and ethnic cleansing that pours shame on any organisation or government claiming to endorse universal human rights.

A year after being served a subpoena by the FBI because of my political work, the state of civil liberties in the US has only gotten worse.