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href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-imposes-travel-ban-bds-co-founder-omar-barghouti"
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<h1 id="reader-title">Israel imposes travel ban on BDS
co-founder Omar Barghouti</h1>
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<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah"
typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label
skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ali Abunimah</a></span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single" property="dc:date"
datatype="xsd:dateTime"
content="2016-05-10T14:42:23+00:00">10 May 2016</span></span><br>
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<p>Israel has imposed an effective travel ban on <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/omar-barghouti">Omar
Barghouti</a>, one of the founders of the Palestinian
movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS).</p>
<p>This follows explicit threats made against him by
Israeli government ministers.</p>
<p>Israel has officially refused to renew Barghouti’s
travel document, a move that the Palestinian BDS
National Committee (BNC) said “amounts to a travel ban
and is an escalation of its attacks on Palestinian human
rights defenders who nonviolently advocate for
Palestinian rights under international law.”</p>
<p><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/sarah-leah-whitson">Sarah
Leah Whitson</a>, executive director of <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/human-rights-watch">Human
Rights Watch’s</a> Middle East and North Africa
division, told The Electronic Intifada that “Israel’s
refusal to renew Barghouti’s travel document appears to
be an effort to punish him for exercising his right to
engage in peaceful, political activism, using its
arsenal of bureaucratic control over Palestinian lives.”</p>
<p>“Sadly, Israel has used this sort of control to
arbitrarily ban many Palestinians from traveling, as
well as to ban international human rights monitors,
journalists and activists from entering Israel and the
occupied Palestinian territories,” Whitson added.</p>
<h2>Undeterred</h2>
<p>In a press release on Tuesday, the BNC said that
Barghouti, who lives in Akka, in the north of
present-day Israel, “has Israeli permanent residency and
requires an Israeli travel document to be able to travel
in and out of Palestine/Israel.”</p>
<p>The BNC warned that “Israel’s decision not to grant a
renewal of the travel document on baseless bureaucratic
pretenses is being viewed by human rights experts as the
first step towards revoking Barghouti’s permanent
residency.”</p>
<p>Barghouti’s immediate reaction was: “I am unnerved but
certainly undeterred by these threats. Nothing will stop
me from struggling for my people’s freedom, justice and
peace.”</p>
<p>“Having failed to stop the growth of BDS in the
mainstream, Israel is now launching a desperate and
dangerous global war of repression on the movement,” BNC
general coordinator Mahmoud Nawajaa said.</p>
<p>“After losing many battles for the hearts and minds at
the grassroots level, Israel and its well-oiled lobby
groups are pressuring Western states to implement
patently anti-democratic measures that threaten civil
liberties at large,” Nawajaa added, in reference to a
raft of <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/anti-bds-laws">anti-BDS
legislation</a> in the US and several European states.</p>
<p>“By banning our colleague Omar Barghouti from
travelling and threatening him with physical violence,
Israel is showing the lengths it will go to in order to
stop the spread of the nonviolent BDS movement for
Palestinian freedom, justice and equality,” Nawajaa
said.</p>
<h2>Threats</h2>
<p>The Israeli move follows threats made against Barghouti
and other Palestinian human rights defenders by top
Israeli government ministers in March.</p>
<p>Interior minister <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/aryeh-deri">Aryeh
Deri</a> had <a
href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4784302,00.html">explicitly
threatened</a> to revoke Barghouti’s residency on the
grounds that “he is using his resident status to travel
all over the world in order to operate against Israel in
the most serious manner.”</p>
<p>Israeli intelligence minister <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/yisrael-katz">Yisrael
Katz</a> called for a campaign of “targeted civil
eliminations” of BDS leaders with the help of Israeli
intelligence. The Hebrew term Katz used was similar to
the Israeli term for “targeted assassinations.”</p>
<p>And <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/gilad-erdan">Gilad
Erdan</a>, the Israeli minister in charge of combating
BDS, also said that activists including Barghouti should
“pay the price” for their work.</p>
<p>At the time, Amnesty International <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/amnesty-condemns-israels-threats-against-bds-activists">strongly
condemned these threats</a>, warning that “an
escalation of acts of intimidation by the government and
attacks and threats by settlers and other non-state
actors have created an increasingly dangerous
environment” for human rights defenders in Israel and
the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>The group expressed particular concern for the “safety
and liberty of Palestinian human rights defender Omar
Barghouti, and other boycott, divestment and sanctions
(BDS) activists, following calls alluding to threats,
including of physical harm and deprivation of basic
rights, made by Israeli ministers.”</p>
<p>EU representatives, by contrast, <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/eu-envoy-refuses-condemn-israeli-threats-against-bds-activists">refused
to condemn the Israeli threats</a>, sending Israel a
tacit signal that it could proceed with its repression
campaign.</p>
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