ADALAH NEWS UPDATE
22 December 2011

(Tel Aviv, Israel) On 13 December 2011, Adalah, together with Physicians for Human Rights - Israel (PHR-I) and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), held a briefing for embassy representatives in Israel on the shared concerns regarding the new discriminatory laws and racist acts against the Palestinian Arab minority, attacks on human rights defenders, and the lack of accountability and the culture of impunity prevalent in Israel concerning rights violations against Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

The briefing was hosted by the German Embassy. It was attended by Ambassadors and political officers from Germany, Spain, the Czech Republic, Italy, Austria, the United States, Denmark, and the European Union.

Hadas Ziv, director of Public Outreach at Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I), opened the briefing by analyzing the political, social and civil context in which the NGO partners have been working for the last two years. She focused on attacks on "three defensive mechanisms" – human rights defenders, the judicial system, and the media.

The director of Adalah's Land & Planning Unit, Attorney Suhad Bishara then provided an overview of new legal developments concerning the human rights of Arab citizens of Israel, including Adalah's work against new discriminatory laws of 2011. She offered analysis on Adalah's litigation against the Nakba Law and the Admissions Committee Law. Attorney Bishara also assessed recent developments in State confiscation of Arab land and property, focusing particularly on key cases concerning the Arab Bedouin in the Naqab (Negev). Finally, she emphasized the non-implementation or legislative bypassing of favorable court judgments as an indication of the diminishing status of the rule of law in Israel.

The International Outreach Director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), Louis Frankenthaler, and Anat Litvin, the Director of the Prisoners and Detainees Department of PHR-I, spoke about the culture of impunity in Israel particularly with regard to torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners in detention. Ms. Litvin also discussed a new report issued by PHR-I and PCATI entitled, "Doctoring the Evidence, Abandoning the Victim," which reveals how torture and ill-treatment is covered-up in Israel's health care system.