2022-02-27

Gaza

Gaza / Announcement / Core Program / position paper

Position Paper: Violations Committed by the Municipal Police in Gaza

It is time to stop the violations of the municipal police in Gaza and hold its perpetrators accountable

The Palestinian Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession "MUSAWA" expresses its shock and disapproval of the continued use of violence and excessive repression by the municipal police in the Southern Governorates "Gaza" against the owners of the booths on a frequent basis, which has become a phenomenon and a grave violation of the police's code of conduct with citizens, and an imposition of decisions issued by the municipalities without community consultation or participation, and assigning the police the force it to impose them on the owners of the booths , as recently happened with the owners of the booths in the Qala'a (fortress) Market and the Jawwalat (Cellphones) Market in Khan Younis, despite the passage of a long period of time since these booths existed as livelihood for many families, and a livelihood for young people suffering from unemployment, and a blocked horizon in the face of a decent life for their families, and despite the fact that the municipal police collect 3 shekels per day from each booth owner, according to what the owners of the booths reported to the Musawa’ s monitoring team.

The center points out that the violence practiced against the owners of the booths takes several forms, including the destruction of those booths, and the obligation of their owners to move them from one place to another, besides beating and exercising physical and psychological violence on their owners, as if the municipal police who practices this violence adopts the doctrine of domination, bullying and imposition, and violence, that contradicts the axioms of the role of the police and its rules of conduct with citizens, which is supposed to be the service of people, preserving their physical and societal security, facilitating their livelihoods, and preserving their human dignity.

Despite the recurrence of the phenomenon of violence and abuse again and again, the responsible parties in the municipalities, or police, or the Public Prosecution did not take measures of administrative and penal accountability against those officers, and did not refer any of them to the judiciary in order to be duly held accountable. On the contrary, these officers received care and protection from their officials who summon the victims to police stations and arrest them, make them remain silent or change their statements, writings or videos, in a manner that contradicts the truth and clears the scene of the municipal police officers to repeat again cases of attacks on booth owners and their source of income.

The Center sees in the continuation of this phenomenon that contradicts the obligations to confront the crisis of poverty, unemployment and hunger that afflicts dozens of families, and despite the grave danger this phenomenon poses to the security of society and the rights of its citizens, and the weakness it entails in controlling the performance of the municipal police, which breaks the provisions of the law and erodes the dignity of the people and their physical safety in the absence of accountability, the thing that wastes citizens’ trust in law enforcement authorities and deepens the economic and social crisis, and opens the doors wide to more security, legal and societal chaos, and thus requires a revision of the powers granted to the municipal police and subjecting them to administrative and legal surveillance from the police leadership and the Ministry of Interior And the Public Prosecution, and activating the accountability of the officers violating the rights of citizens by referring them to judicial accountability, and not settling for the mediation of the Mukhtars and clans for its inability to address the causes of this phenomenon that violates the law and requires immediate suspension, and raising the level of legal, administrative and judicial accountability in preservation of the principle of the rule of law and its sovereignty above all.

MUSAWA

Issued on 27.02.2022