The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, MIFTAH would like to apologize for the recent and brief publication on our website of an article penned by Nawaf Al Zaru that discusses Jewish blood libel during Passover. It has become clear to us after investigating this incident that the article was accidentally and incorrectly published by a junior staff member. The said staffer has been reprimanded and all our staff has been informed as to the disgusting and repulsive phenomena of blood libel or accusation, including its use against Jews. Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, as founder, has nothing to do with the day to day management at MIFTAH and was no way involved in this incident. We express our sincerest regret for offense caused by the oversight that resulted in said publication. We are whole-heartedly committed to fighting racism, hatemongering, discrimination and persecution of any kind wherever it should exist, and especially in our own society.
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By: civil and human rights organizations
Date: 24/11/2022
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172 civil and human rights organizations urge the international community Condemning the racist Israeli occupation crimes against Palestinian children and demanding their release
The Israelian crimes against Palestinian children are condemned. The Israeli occupation authorities continue their violations against Palestinian children represented in arresting and abusing them during the arrest process without respecting the child’s protection treaties and the Convention on the Rights of the Child . These crimes are carried out under displacement, murder and intimidation. the highest percentage was after April/October (119), and at the end of October there are 160 children distributed in Megiddo Ofer Damon prison of them About (4) children in administrative detention and (12) children under (12) years old are also detained . According to the testimonies provided by the prisoners and the reports issued by the prisoners’ institutions, they are subjected to the cruelty to which adult prisoners are subjected to torture, unfair trials and inhumane treatment that violates their basic rights and threatens their future is lost. This is against the terms of the Child Agreement ،especially Article 16, which states: No arbitrary or unlawful interference with a child's private life, family, home, or correspondence, or any lawful prejudice to his honor or reputation. Which also states: “The child has the right to be protected by law from this exposure and prejudice.” The occupation does not take into account the young age of children when they are brought to court, and a special court is not formed for them, and the age of the child is set for less than (16) years based on Military Order No. (132). this is a clear violation of Article No. (1) of the Child Convention, which defines a child as “every human being under the age of eighteen.” The Israeli occupation authorities deprive the child prisoners of the most basic rights granted to them by international conventions that they are entitled to regardless of their religion, nationality. These include the right not to be subjected to arbitrary arrest .it includes:
Child prisoners in Israeli prisons suffer from harsh and inhumane conditions of detention that lack international standards for children's rights. The prisoners suffer from lack of food and poor quality, lack of hygiene, and the spread of insects Child prisoners are deprived of health care and appropriate medical treatment, and painkillers are usually the treatment for various types of diseases. According to the testimonies of child prisoners, the prison administration refuses to transfer patients from them to prison clinics, and if they transfer them, they are subjected to beatings, insults, and harassment, even from doctors and nurses. Likewise, there is no permanent doctor available in the prison clinic. The occupation is still procrastinating and sometimes refusing to perform surgeries on children who need immediate operations, and this is contrary to international laws that explicitly stipulate the need for medical care for prisoners. Articles (91-92) of the Fourth Geneva Convention stated: “Every prisoner must have a clinic". An event supervised by a qualified doctor, and that the detainees receive the medical care they need, as well as the installation of any medical devices necessary to maintain their health in good condition, free of charge. Free medical examinations must be conducted for the detainees at least once a month, and their purpose is to monitor the health and psychological condition, general nutrition, and hygiene, as well as the detection of infectious diseases. Israeli prisons do not comply with this. And if we examine the sentences issued unjustly and aggressively, we find that they are high, as one child was sentenced to life imprisonment, three children were sentenced to 15 years in prison, and four other children were sentenced between 5 and 9 years, and often the verdict is accompanied by financial fines (1000-6000 shekels). The Israeli occupation state is the only country in the world that tries children before military courts. Based on the foregoing, we, the undersigned organizations, demand: First: The international community to put pressure on the Israeli occupation state and oblige it to implement international agreements on prisoners and detainees, especially child prisoners, and to work for their release. Second: All international human rights organizations, especially those working in the field of children, such as UNICEF & Dcl, to launch an international campaign to shed light on the suffering of child prisoners in Israeli prisons, and to work for their release. The signatories to the statement
By: MIFTAH
Date: 06/07/2022
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Zero tolerance for violence against women ... #SolidarityAcrossBorders
In light of the escalating rate of femicide in the Arab world, which recently claimed the lives of university student Naira Ashraf and TV broadcaster Shaima Gamal in Egypt, Iman Arsheed from Jordan, Palestinian engineer in the UAE Lubna Mansour, among many others, the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy "MIFTAH" announces its unwavering support for all feminist movements, coalitions and activities calling for a general strike by women across the Arab world on 6/7/2022 and calls on Palestinian women to participate and express their opinion in rejecting violence committed against women. For decades, Palestinian women have been subjected to the most heinous types of crimes and violations under Israel’s regime of settler-colonialism, occupation and apartheid. They continue to be exposed to various risks due to the ongoing Israeli policies of demolishing their homes and displacing their families, nightly home raids that terrorize them and their children, and willful killings of women at Israeli military checkpoints. Despite this large-scale injustice inflicted daily, Palestinian women are not exempted from the patriarchal culture and its violent and oppressive manifestations that are prevalent in our society and across the world. It treats them as second-class citizens, de-prioritizes their needs and legitimizes various forms of discrimination and violence against them. Since the beginning of 2022, six Palestinian women have been murdered inside Israel, followed by the killing of two Palestinian girls in Nablus and Tubas. The perpetrator often evades accountability, as the local society provides cover and legitimizes such crimes. Every year, Palestinian women renew their call on decision-makers to put an end to the horrific series of killings against them. However, many laws that guarantee the protection of the dignity and rights of Palestinian women and their families are still shelved by the government under the pretext of the public mood rejecting them. Here we are today, joining our voices to all feminist voices, along with all the oppressed groups in our Arab societies, to say enough is enough. It is time for us to stand united against this great injustice, and to combat all practices that rob Arab women of the right to life, devalue them, or justify their oppression. We reject all inherited cultural traits that perpetuate patriarchal authority to control the fate and decisions of Arab women and limit their independence and permit forms of violence and discrimination. We call upon the authorities throughout the Arab world to stop disregarding women’s issues and to take the necessary measures to protect women from violence, by enacting a system of laws that guarantees safety for women and preserves their dignity and their right to equal participation in various political, economic and social fields, and by underpinning the principles of democracy and equality, the fight against all forms of discrimination as well as the criminalization of its practices. We also call on Palestinian women to express their rejection of all forms of crimes and violence perpetrated against them, in the manner they find appropriate, whether through demonstrations and vigils in the streets and public spaces, on social media platforms, or a strike on paid or house work, in order to demonstrate the extent of societal rejection of all discriminatory and violent practices against women and to highlight the role of women in building societies and states.
By: MIFTAH
Date: 14/05/2022
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229 Arab and International Human Rights Organizations and Networks call for an end to impunity, and Demand the Opening of an International Investigation of the Crime of Executing the Journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh by the Occupation Forces
The undersigned human rights organizations strongly condemn the assassination of the journalist, Al-Jazeera correspondent, Shireen Abu Aqleh, after she was targeted by the forces of the occupation and apartheid state with a bullet in the head, and the journalist Ali Al-Samoudi was shot in the back, while covering the storming of the Jenin refugee camp Wednesday morning, 11 5/2022, thus increasing the number of Palestinian journalists and media professionals who were killed by the occupation bullets to (83) journalists since the beginning of 1972. The signatories affirm that the crime of the occupation that targeted the journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh is a deliberate and premeditated act and a full-fledged assassination operation. The martyr Shireen Abu Aqleh is a direct victim of organized state terrorism, which behaves with the mentality of criminal gangs. This crime came as a result of the systematic incitement against Palestinian journalists by the occupying state against them for their professional role in revealing the truth and exposing its crimes. This is in addition to the international society's silence on the crimes of the occupation committed against the Palestinian people because of their double standards. The signatories stress that the Israeli occupation forces, by their heinous act, want to obscure the truth and cover up their heinous crimes against the Palestinian people. In addition, the occupation, by its heinous act, wants to scare and intimidate journalists to prevent the transmission of the truth to the world. The signatories call for the opening of a neutral, independent, and transparent international investigation under the supervision of the International Criminal Court to find out the crime of targeting journalist Abu Aqleh by the occupation forces, and the need to launch an international campaign by the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, the International Federation of Journalists, international non-governmental organizations and Palestinian human rights institutions to hold Israeli war criminals accountable, to prevent impunity for perpetrators, and to bring a legal human rights case regarding this crime before the International Criminal Court, to prosecute Israeli leaders and politicians who publicly incite the killing of Palestinian civilians, including journalists. They are calling on the United Nations and the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to provide the necessary protection for journalists and media crews working in the occupied territories. Likewise, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights considers targeting journalists while covering armed conflicts and wars a war crime, similar to targeting ambulance crews. The signatories recall that journalists and media workers enjoy special protection under the provisions of international humanitarian law, just like civilians in times of armed conflict, especially Articles (51 and 79) of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, where Article (51) paragraph (2) provides for the protection of the civilian population (the civilian population as such and the civilian population shall not be the object of attack). Article (79) of the same states that “Journalists who undertake dangerous professional missions in areas of armed conflict are civilians... and they must be protected in this capacity in accordance with the provisions of the conventions.” The crime committed by the occupation forces against journalist Abu Aqleh is a flagrant violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2222 on the protection of journalists, which the Council issued in May 2015.
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