Human Rights Organizations Condemn the Decision of the Occupation and  Apartheid Government concerning the six Palestinian civil society and human  rights organizations And Calls upon International Human Rights Organizations to Condemn It, Work for Its Abolition, and Protect Human Rights Defenders

The undersigned human rights organizations express their concern and strong condemnation of the classification of the Israeli government of occupation and apartheid, on October 19, 2021, of six Palestinian human rights and civil society organizations as “terrorist organizations”, under the Israeli Anti-Terrorism Law of 2016, namely: Al-Haq, Addameer Foundation for Human Rights, Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees, Defense for Children International/Palestine Branch, Union of Agricultural Work Committees, and Bisan Research Center. This illegitimate decision comes in the context of the continuation of the occupation and apartheid state’s attacks on the rights of the Palestinian people, especially their right to struggle, in all forms, for freedom, return, self-determination, and building their independent Palestinian state as guaranteed by the International Bill of Human Rights and International Law.

This illegitimate decision also aims to delegitimize Palestinian NGOs and distort their struggle, including human rights organizations and those involved in their activities, as a prelude to their suppression and to silence their voice that reveals the violations of the occupation and the dominance of the settler apartheid regime and racial discrimination over the Palestinian people, and in response to its exposure of settlement policies and practices, and the illegal Israeli measures that have deprived the Palestinian people, since 1948, of exercising their inalienable right of return and self-determination, in addition to weakening the voices calling for accountability and an end to impunity for the perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinian people.

The undersigned organizations appeal to all the forces of freedom and justice and defenders of human rights and peoples in the world for solidarity and to take tangible measures to overcome obstacles and empower human rights and civil society organizations to monitor the ongoing violations and crimes of the occupation and provide support to the Palestinian people in their heroic and continuous struggle, for more than seven decades, towards the liberation of Palestine from the apartheid regime and Israeli settler colonialism.

The undersigned organizations salute the struggles of the Palestinian people and their legendary steadfastness; and they appreciate the efforts of human rights organizations and Palestinian civil society organizations, especially the organizations targeted by this illegitimate decision. The undersigned organizations also call upon to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Human Rights Council, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and all international bodies concerned with the defense of human rights, in particular the International Observatory for the Defense of Human Rights Defenders of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as the Rapporteur of the Special Committee on the Status of Human Rights Defenders to take appropriate legal measures, condemn the decision of the occupation government, work to cancel it, and provide protection for Palestinian human rights defenders and the rights of the Palestinian people.