Adalah and NGO Partners Brief UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression during his Visit to Israel/OPT

(Jerusalem and Beer el-Sabe) On 12 December 2011, Adalah, NGO partners, and human rights activists participated in a briefing for the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, Mr. Frank La Rue. Mr. La Rue, who is currently serving his second term as Special Rapporteur (SR), conducted a mission to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) from 6 – 18 December 2011.

Adalah Attorney Orna Kohn represented Adalah at the briefing. Attorney Kohn provided the SR with an overview of the challenges in Israel with regard to freedom of expression, focusing on recent discriminatory legislation against Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, systemic attacks on Arab political parties and the political leadership, and brutal tactics used by police and military forces against peaceful demonstrators. In speaking of the Nakba Law and the anti-Boycott Law, as well as Adalah's representation of human rights activists and Arab political leaders, Attorney Kohn emphasized the chilling effect of the introduction of such legislation and tactics on freedom of expression, opinion, assembly and association in Israel. Other NGO partners who attended the meeting also requested the SR's urgent attention to the right-wing attacks on human rights organizations in Israel, and the recent legislative attempts to restrict or cut foreign governmental funding to them.

On 16 December 2011, Adalah hosted the SR and UN human rights officers in the Naqab (Negev) and in coordination with NGO partners, provided an overview of the struggle of the Arab Bedouin community to remain on their ancestral land. The SR met with representatives of the unrecognized Arab Bedouin village of Al-Araqib, where residents and activists have faced mass arrests and criminal charges for peacefully protesting the state's confiscation of Arab Bedouin land and the demolition of homes. The SR also visited the Big Mosque in Beer el-Sabe, where, despite a Supreme Court ruling in June 2011 to convert the Mosque into an Islamic museum, the municipality continues to use the grounds for general events including its annual Wine and Beer festival, with total disregard for the sanctity of the Mosque and the religious sensitivity of worshippers.

At a press conference in Jerusalem on 18 December 2011, the SR issued his preliminary conclusions about the state of freedom of expression in Israel and the OPt, and will release a full report in June 2012.

See pictures of the NGO briefing