2019-03-18

Gaza

Gaza

MUSAWA Calls for Setting up a Crises Unit to Follow Up on Human Rights Violations and the Violence Used against the Peaceful Movement in Gaza

MUSAWA- the Palestinian Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession, along with many civil society institutions and Human Rights Institutions, continues to receive complaints from Gazan citizens, including university students, journalists, and lawyers for being subjected to brutal physical attacks by security members in Gaza, who in their turn expanded the scope of home invasions, and accompanied them with an arrest campaign that targeted tens of both men and women leaving the children in a state of intimidation and fear, not to mention the damage they caused to the protesters’ houses and journalists’ cameras in an attempt to withhold information. The security members confiscated the protectors’ cellphones, expanded the summons campaign, referred civilians to the military prosecution and judiciary, prohibited public assemblies and used security members wearing civilian clothes to break-up peaceful demonstrations and marches in a direct violation of the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of opinion and expression, and in an attempt to silence the voices of protestors against the government’s administrative and economic policies, including the raises on taxes, which now cover more types and values, the adoption of discrimination and nepotism in public office and employment opportunities, the silence on the phenomena of hunger, unemployment and collective begging, the failure of an equitable provision of medication, and turning hospitals into some kind of security departments through the reservations to the causes and number of injuries referred to them, which are drawn from various social groups, including women, children, and professionals like lawyers, academics and civil society organizations’ officials.

Lawyers for the Rule of Law Groups (Friends of MUSAWA) and the Network of Palestinian Human Rights Defenders, which were founded by MUSAWA, continue to monitor and document the violations committed in the cities and governorates of Gaza Strip.

Attempting to unify the efforts of legal and civil society institutions, and to increase their effectiveness to lobby the decision makers in Gaza, as well as to invite the political actors to work collaboratively to ensure achieving the desired goals of the mentioned lobbying, this initiative comes to work on stopping all forms of violations against constitutional rights, and to implement a wide lobbying and advocacy campaign, both on the national and international level. This includes addressing the competent officials in the United Nations to ensure not coming back to the mentioned unlawful approaches, holding their adopters and perpetrators accountable, getting the decision makers to offer a public apology to the people,  and committing to the protection of human rights as well as ending all the manifestations of corruption and nepotism, in addition to cancelling the unlawful taxes, and addressing poverty, hunger, unemployment, begging, and  disease without discrimination in a way that provides social security and safety, all by setting- up a crises unit that works round- the- clock to monitor, document, and address the different forms of human rights violations.  

Thus, MUSAWA calls for all sister organizations in Gaza to hold an urgent meeting to discuss the mentioned crises unit, to agree on its working mechanisms, and to engage in the implementation of a work plan that works under its supervision, as the center asserts its rejection of the culture of violence regardless of its perpetrator.

Issued on 18/3/2019

MUSAWA