In Exceptional Move, AG Cancels Indictment against Dr. Huneida Ghanem for “Assaulting a Public Employee” after Adalah Argued She was Subjected to Humiliating and Degrading Treatment by Airport Security

Following Adalah's intervention, the Attorney General (AG) of Israel, in an exceptional move, cancelled an indictment on 13 January 2011 filed against Dr. Huneida Ghanem. The indictment charged Dr. Ghanem with assaulting and humiliating a public employee during an extremely invasive and humiliating search that she was subjected to at Ben-Gurion Airport in Israel, while she was travelling to France to participate in an academic conference. Dr. Ghanem, who has PhD in Sociology from Hebrew University and a postdoctoral degree from Harvard University, is the director of Madar: The Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies.

In the letter sent to the AG on 30 November 2010, Attorney Hassan Jabareen, the General Director of Adalah, argued that the search of Dr. Ghanem was illegal as it was not based on any specific suspicious raised by her conduct or the presence of any suspicious object in her cases, but only because she is an Arab woman. Moreover, Adalah argued that Dr. Ghanem herself had been subjected to degrading and humiliating treatment by the airport security that violated her rights to equality, privacy and dignity.

The case concerns an incident that took place in June 2009. Dr. Ghanem and her taxi driver were initially kept waiting for one hour immediately after their arrival at the airport. A security officer then arrived and began to investigate Dr. Ghanem and the taxi driver in a provocative manner, unloaded all of Dr. Ghanem's cases from the taxi and emptied out all her belongings on the pavement, allowing passersby to view her private items.

Once inside the airport, Dr. Ghanem's cases were emptied for a second time, despite the fact that an x-ray scanning machine revealed nothing irregular in their contents. After a lengthy inspection, security officers asked her to accompany them to an adjacent room in order to conduct a body search, even though a metal detector had shown up no suspicious objects on her person.

During the body search, Dr. Ghanem felt that the female security officer had crossed all reasonable boundaries and that the search was tantamount to sexual harassment. Shocked and disturbed, she then took the decision to exit the room. After she left the room in anger and shouting against the harassment, another female security officer asked her why she was yelling. Dr. Ghanem put her hand on the breast of this officer and said, “Would you like it if anyone did this to you?” The indictment filed against Dr. Ghanem argued that this act amounted to assaulting an officer.

In Adalah's request to the Attorney General, Attorney Jabareen argued that Dr. Ghanem had no intent to assault the officer and that the act was done solely to show the officer the treatment to which she had been subjected. Adalah also argued that Dr. Ghanem was discriminated against due to her nationality, and that the search violated her right to dignity without any legal basis. Therefore, Adalah argued that the indictment should be cancelled.

Adalah and other human rights organizations in Israel have repeatedly filed complaints, tort damages cases, and petitions to the Israeli Supreme Court to end racial profiling, humiliating and degrading treatment and discrimination against Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel and Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem at Ben Gurion Airport and other airports in Israel.

Adalah's Letter (Hebrew)
The Attorney General's Letter (Hebrew)