[News] 16 Palestinian and Regional Organizations Send Joint Submission to the UN Secretary-General

[Anti-Imperialist News]

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  16 Palestinian and Regional Organisations Send Joint Submission to the
  UN Secretary-General on Intimidation and Reprisals for Cooperation
  with the UN


20، Apr 2021
�

On 15 April 2021, 16 Palestinian and regional civil society 
organisations sent a joint submission the United Nations (UN) 
Secretary-General, highlighting Israel’s attacks against civil society 
organisations and human rights defenders, carried out between May 2020 
and April 2021, for their work in the field of human rights, including 
with UN.�

Addressing Israel’s systematic campaign of silencing, intimidation, 
harassment, and delegitimisation of human rights defenders, activists, 
and organisations seeking to challenge Israel’s widespread and 
systematic human rights violations against the Palestinian people and 
calling for justice and accountability under international law, the 
joint submission highlighted how Palestinian civil society organisations 
have continued to be the subject of an intensified online disinformation 
and smear campaign by Israel. This campaign, orchestrated predominantly 
through Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs and 
government-affiliated organisations, aims at maintaining Israel’s 
regime of racial domination and oppression, including by creating a 
climate of fear and intimidation and preventing Palestinian human rights 
organisations from carrying out their advocacy work.

In particular, the joint submission highlighted smear-publications 
produced by Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs and its 
government-affiliated organisations, including NGO Monitor. The 
smear-publications, which include inflammatory, baseless, and false 
allegations of “ties to terrorism,” aim to silence Palestinian 
organisations, discredit their work, and thereby delegitimise and defund 
civil society organisations. �

Finally, the joint submission offered the following recommendations:�

 1. Examine Israel, as the Occupying Power, and its conduct, including
    through its Ministry of Strategic Affairs and government-affiliated
    organisations, in smearing human rights defenders and activists,
    restricting their work and the right to freedom of expression, and
    threatening their right to life, amongst other rights, both offline
    and online, including on social media platforms;�
 2. Demand that Israel immediately cease all practices and policies
    intended to intimidate and silence human rights defenders, in
    violation of their right to freedom of expression, including through
    arbitrary detention, torture and other ill-treatment,
    institutionalised hate speech and incitement, residency revocation,
    deportations, and other coercive or punitive measures;
 3. Engage with online platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, to
    ensure thatposts containing death threats and misinformation about
    human rights defenders are removed, that their best efforts are
    taken to guarantee that their platforms are not employed in
    coordinated attacks within organised campaigns that aim at
    denigrating Palestinian human rights defenders, that they test their
    policies and procedures periodically to ensure that they do not
    discriminate against any person or group nor influenced by political
    whims and systematic incitement campaigns, and that Facebook,
    Twitter and other online platforms adhere to their human rights
    responsibilities; and
 4. Highlight the root causes underpinning Israel’s disinformation
    campaign and quashing of freedom of opinion and expression in the
    occupied Palestinian territory, and call for an immediate and
    unconditional lifting of the 13-year land, air and sea closure of
    the Gaza Strip, an end to the 53-year occupation of the West Bank,
    including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, and an end to the
    72-year apartheid over the Palestinian people as a whole on both
    sides of the Green Line, and as refugees and exiles abroad denied
    the right of return.�

Read the full submission 
<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=af4f648542&e=08c14cf485>.

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