2022-07-09

West Bank

West Bank / Core Program / position paper

MUSAWA’s statement on the attack on the Ashtar Theater Festival

The attack on the "Ashtar Festival": an indicator lawlessness unlimited in extent and results

MUSAWA - The Palestinian Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession  clearly expresses its condemnation and denunciation of a group of individuals - and in an expression of a repressive security approach aimed at suppressing the freedom of opinion and expression of others - carrying out beatings with batons and hands and verbal abuse against a group of Palestinian, Arab and international artists who wanted to draw a smile on the faces of Palestinian children in Eid al-Adha, which coincided this year with a periodic festival of a Palestinian theater institution “Ashtar Theater” that is known for its performance and adoption of committed art that expresses the national, patriotic and humanitarian rights of our people who fight against the occupation and against corruption.

The attack came in flagrant contradiction with the principles, values ​​and constitutional rights embodied and stipulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Palestinian Basic Law in its Preface and Articles 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 18, 19 and 26, which guaranteed the Palestinians and the Palestinians in general without discrimination the right of citizenship, the right of belief, freedom of opinion and expression and participation in Public life, and in this group's intended violation of the privacy of the participants by confiscating their mobile phones and forcing some of them to delete videos that documented the attack on their phones - according to eyewitness testimonies. The attack expressed this group’s hostility to art, culture, the essence of the Declaration of Independence, the Basic Law and the international covenants that the State of Palestine signed and became bound by its provisions, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights.

Referring to the negative results and the severe damage caused to a number of participants and those in charge of the Ashtar Theater, which included personalities of different ages, as a result of that group's continued infringement and violation of the physical integrity and human dignity of the participants in the "Habbet Fan" Festival even after the participants arrived inside the Ramallah municipality, and even after the police dispersed the aggressors, at first in front of the Ottoman court, taking advantage of the lack of police presence in the municipal square.

Emphasizing that every human being has the right to embrace the belief or ideas that they see as expressing them and to perform their national and societal message through their human creativity in any field of knowledge, science and culture, whether social, economic, political or artistic, and that these rights are an integral part of the constitutional rights the violation or infringement of which is a crime that does not fall under the statute of limitations and must be dismissed from office if the perpetrator is a public employee, and the state is obligated to compensate the victims in accordance with the provisions of the Basic Law.

In the face of the horror of what happened, we demand the formation of an independent civil investigation committee of personalities known for their integrity and societal confidence in the incident of the attack, the criminal and civil accountability of the perpetrators, and the commitment of the Authority and its different ministries and departments to work to stop all manifestations of violence that express a dark thought that, if it prevails, constitutes a beginning of security, moral, legal and societal chaos and lawlessness.

MUSAWA calls on all social, civil, and legal actors, and civil society organizations to raise their voice in opposition to the approach of taking the law by hand and imposing a culture of “fraud” and brutal violence in the relationship with citizens and transforming the country into farms and cantons led by gang culture, which destroys the homeland and undermines unity its people.

Published on 09.07.2022

MUSAWA