2019-05-20

Gaza

Gaza

His Excellency the Ambassador of Palestine to the Arab Republic of Egypt, Mr. Diab Al-Louh/ Cairo

Subject: Violating Blank Passports Holders' Rights to Citizenship and Travel

MUSAWA- The Palestinian Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession extends its warmest greetings to your Excellency, noting that the center received more than 100 complaints from citizens resided in the Gaza Strip, who hold blank passports and suffer from a number of violations against their human rights, such as the right to nationality, citizenship, travel, freedom of movement, treatment, family reunion, education, and work.

Some complainants, including: Abeer To’eemeh, Suzan Taher, Nisreen Al-Hosari, Aman Zo’rob, Mustafa Elayyan, Ayam Al-Fleet, and Ameer Al-Fleet, stated that before 2019, they used to travel from Gaza to Egypt and other Arab countries using the same document, but since the beginning of the year they were banned from traveling through Rafah crossing, as the Egyptian authorities have refused to accept the blank passports, given that Egypt has previously accepted those passports and enabled their holders to enter its borders.      

MUSAWA believes that this ban directly violates the right to citizenship and nationality, which are both guaranteed by the national and international laws, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which asserted in its articles No 15, 12, 6 that “Everyone has the right to nationality, and everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law”, and in article No 27 of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees that provided for “The High Contracting Parties undertake to issue identity papers (residence card, identity card, etc.) to refugees authorized to reside in their territory”, in addition to what was provided in by the Palestinian Litigator in the Basic law concerning the right to enjoy the Palestinian nationality, which grants them the right to movement and travel, as each Palestinian, who reached the age of 16, has the right to get an identity card, according to the provisions of the Civil Code of 2000, or any equivalent ID document, such as passports.

This ban did not only affect the constitutional rights of the new blank passports holders but also affected citizens who hold blank passports and used to travel out of Gaza using their approved passports before, which entails a serious violation of their human rights as well. Thus, we ask you to consider this memo and its attachments and to take the needed legal and diplomatic action that ensures enabling the complainants to enjoy their right to travel and their freedom of movement duly, hoping you keep us updated with the results of those actions as soon as possible.

With All Due Respect

Issued on 20/5/2019

MUSAWA