UN official calls on Israeli authorities to stop targeting Palestinian human rights defenders

Geneva: The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Mary Lawlor, on Wednesday, called on the Israeli authorities to stop targeting the Palestinian human...

Geneva: The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Mary Lawlor, on Wednesday, called on the Israeli authorities to stop targeting the Palestinian human rights defenders in the Occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, through prolonged administrative detention without charge, humiliation and ill treatment.

In a statement, Lawlor stressed that the use of administrative detention with no charge and based on secret evidence that cannot be challenged, as well as delays in, or lack of, access to contact with lawyers and family, all point to the absence of due process rights. 

She called on the Israeli authorities to respect fair trial conditions, or immediately release the remaining two human rights defenders, as well as the dozens of other human rights defenders detained on account of their peaceful activities.

So far, UN human rights experts expressed similar concern in multiple occasions, but in her statement, Lawlor focused on five Palestinian human rights defenders who were arrested without any injunction or informing them about the reasons behind these arrests, who were interrogated in the absence of lawyers and disconnected from their families.