Australian human rights community solidarity statement with Palestinian human rights organisations & defenders

27 October 2021

We the undersigned individuals and organisations in Australia condemn Israel’s latest dangerous attack on Palestinian human rights institutions in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT).

The State of Israel’s designation of six Palestinian human rights organisations and unions as “terrorist” organisations is designed to criminalise, persecute, and silence Palestinian civil society and human rights defenders for their commitment to the struggle against Israeli occupation, entrenched settler-colonialism, and apartheid. It is a dangerous attack on the internationally protected rights of freedom of speech, association, and assembly.

The organisations targeted include: Addameer – Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association; Al Haq – Law in the Service of Man; Bisan Center for Research and Development; Defense for Children International – Palestine; the Union of Agricultural Work Committees; and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees.

Palestinian human rights organisations are critical to documenting decades of grave abuses by Israeli occupation authorities, many of which are said to amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. They undertake their work at great risk to themselves and operate in a context of war and military occupation. Their offices are routinely raided, property, including sensitive evidence and equipment is confiscated, and their staff are subject to arrest, harassment, intimidation, and travel bans. Palestinian human rights organisations also play a critical role in documenting abuses by Palestinian authorities.

The consequences of this new measure will further criminalise their human rights activities and license Israeli authorities to close their offices, seize their assets, arrest, and imprison their staff. It will also prohibit funding and public expression of support for their work.

The targeting of a children’s rights organisation is particularly egregious. Palestinian children as young as 12 years old are detained at alarming rates in a military detention system, and are prosecuted in a separate judicial system assigned to them, Israel’s military courts. These prominent Palestinian human rights, prisoner’s rights and children’s rights organisations, and women’s and agricultural workers’ unions, are recognised internationally for their courageous work. In 2018, Al Haq was awarded the prestigious French honour the Human Rights Prize of the French Republic – Liberty – Equality – Fraternity, and in 2020, the Gwynne Skinner Human Rights Award presented by the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable.

This move represents an escalation of punitive efforts by Israeli authorities in their ongoing campaign to delegitimise Palestinian human rights organisations and defenders. Israel’s proxies working with, and for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, routinely target institutional donors, supporters, and partners of Palestinian human rights organisations with misinformation and defamatory campaigns designed to defund, discredit and silence their work in exposing Israel’s catalogue of abuses.

This brazen act represents an emboldened Israel that systematically violates the rights of Palestinians with impunity, buttressed by the international community who have for decades failed to challenge and confront Israel’s human rights abuses by imposing meaningful and effective measures in response to these egregious abuses. This includes successive Australian governments entering into agreements that foster Israeli defence industry partnerships, and Australia’s abysmal voting record and interventions at international forums such as the Human Rights Council, Security Council, General Assembly, and the International Criminal Court.

In addition to the dangers that these designations present to a shrinking Palestinian civic space, it also has implications for Australians and Australian organisations who collaborate with, and rely on the work of, Palestinian human rights organisations.

We echo the sentiments of global organisations Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International who stated that: “This appalling and unjust decision is an attack by the Israeli government on the international human rights movement.”

We are responding to a call for support from a collective of Palestinian human rights organisations to condemn these measures and reiterate support for Palestinian civil society organisations.

We stand in solidarity with Palestinian human rights organisations against these repressive Israeli efforts to stifle their critical work.

We call on the Australian Government and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to condemn these outrageous attacks on Palestinian human rights organisations and human rights defenders and to demand that Israel’s occupation authorities reverse these arbitrary decisions immediately.

We further call on the Australian Government to end its complicity with Israel’s violations of international law.

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