GENEVA, Switzerland —
Israel’s decision to
outlaw several Palestinian rights groups as terrorist organizations was “like
an execution” designed to stop them from probing abuses, the head of one of the
bodies told UN investigators on Monday.
اضافة اعلان
Israel last year designated six
Palestinian civil
society groups as “terrorist” bodies and ordered them shuttered, sparking
widespread international outrage.
It was the focus of a first series of public
hearings hosted by a high-level team of investigators appointed last year by
the UN Human Rights Council.
The first week of hearings, which have been harshly
criticized by Israel, will also address the killing in May of
Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
“In these proceedings, we are not drawing any
conclusions or making any judgments,” lead investigator
Navi Pillay, a former
UN rights chief from South Africa, told the gathering via video link.
Shawan Jabarin, the head of legal-aid human rights
group Al-Haq, was the first to take the floor.
He charged that the “terrorist” designation in
October had come after a years-long smear campaign against his organization,
including efforts to get backers to drop their support, as well as death
threats against him and other colleagues.
The designation, which he said was justified with “a
secret file”, was “like an execution”, aimed at halting his organization from
examining a vast array of rights abuses.
“We will not stop. Yes, they can they can detain us,
they can arrest us, they can put us in prisons, they can kill us ... but they
can’t change our beliefs. ... We will continue fighting against the culture and
the policy of impunity.”
Although not unprecedented, it is unusual for UN
investigative teams to hold public hearings with witnesses.
But in this case, the investigators had determined
it was important to be as transparent as possible as they conduct their work to
mitigate accusations of bias.
Read more Region and World
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
