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Addameer (), officially Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association (), is a Palestinian NGO based in
Ramallah Ramallah ( , ; ) is a Palestinians, Palestinian city in the central West Bank, that serves as the administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusalem, at an average elevation of abov ...
. Addameer monitors the treatment of
Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...
prisoners arrested in the
West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
by
Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
and the
Palestinian Authority The Palestinian Authority (PA), officially known as the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over the Palestinian enclaves in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, ...
and provides legal assistance.


History

Addameer was established in 1991. It defines its aims as twofold: support for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli and Palestinian prisons and the provision of "free legal aid to political prisoners, advocates their rights at the national and international level, and works to end torture and other violations of prisoners' rights through monitoring, legal procedures and solidarity campaigns". Khalida Jarrar, its former director, has been held repeatedly under
administrative detention Administrative detention is arrest and detention of individuals by the state without trial. A number of jurisdictions claim that it is done for security reasons. Many countries claim to use administrative detention as a means to combat terrorism ...
without trial. The director of Addameer since 2006 has been Sahar Francis.


Reaction of the State of Israel


IDF raids

The
Israel Defense Forces The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branches: the Israeli Ground Forces, the Israeli Air Force, and ...
(IDF) has raided the offices of Addameer, and seized documentation in their care, on four occasions.


2002

The first Israeli raid on Addameer offices was conducted in 2002, during the Israeli invasion of Ramallah in that year.


2012

The second incident took place in 2012. The timing coincided with the expiry of the annual
International Human Rights Day Human Rights Day (HRD) is celebrated annually around the world on 10 December every year. The date was chosen to honor the United Nations General Assembly's adoption and proclamation, on 10 December 1948, of the Universal Declaration of Huma ...
. On 11 December, at approximately 3 am, the IDF conducted raids on the offices of Addameer and two other Palestinian NGOs, and from Addameer's offices four computers from the legal and documentation units containing information on prisoners and their cases, a hard drive, a video camera and employees' business cards were confiscated. The soldiers also ripped off and tore up posters of prisoners and hunger strikers pinned on the office walls. In the view of Allam Jarrar of the Palestinian NGO Network, the raid's timing was to be seen in the context of the
United Nations General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; , AGNU or AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ. Currently in its Seventy-ninth session of th ...
's recognition of Palestine as a ''de facto'' state two weeks earlier, on 29 November. Executive Director Sahar Francis told Human Rights Watch that video equipment and paper files of prisoner's cases were also missing after the raid. According to a military spokesperson, the raids were based on a suspicion that the three NGOs were affiliated with the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP; ) is a secular Palestinian Marxist–Leninist organization founded in 1967 by George Habash. It has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation ...
(PFLP), though no evidence has been produced to substantiate the claim, and the NGOs themselves deny the assertion. The Israeli Human Rights NGO B'Tselem, also in the name of several other human rights organisations such as
Gisha Gisha or Guisha (, also called Kuy-e Nasr, ), originally Kisha (from the names of its two founders, "Keynejad" and "Shapourian"), is a neighborhood in Tehran, Iran. The neighborhood was known as a center for youth recreation, shopping, and dating. ...
and Yesh Din, issued a strong protest, demanding not only the restitution of the confiscated property but that protection be given to civil society organizations, in particular those engaged in upholding the cause of human rights.
Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...
also demanded that compensation be made for the damage caused. Joe Stork deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch stated:
In the absence of warrants or demonstrated military necessity, these raids are nothing but an unlawful attempt to seriously harm the work of groups supporting the local population.. The Israeli military needs to justify why it was absolutely necessary to ransack the offices of Palestinian rights groups and seize their property.


2019

At 2 o'clock in the morning of 19 September 2019, an IDF unit broke into the offices of Addameer and after ransacking it, took away, according to the inventory left, "five laptops, memory cards, three laptop memories, one laptop card and several books". According to the Al-Haq NGO, the raid and expropriation was in contravention of several principles of international law: private property in such circumstances is protected; and the pillaged items bore no relation to military needs. The loss of the material caused difficulties for the group at a time when 5,150 Palestinian prisoners, many assisted by Addameer, were incarcerated by Israel, and often in Israel, in contravention again of international law.


2022

On 18 August 2022, Israeli forces raided the headquarters of Addameer and six other organisations in Ramallah and al-Bireh, removed computers and equipment and ordered their closure.


Terrorist designation

In October 2021, Addameer was designated a terrorist organization by Israel, together with five other Palestinian non-profit, non-governmental organizations ( Al-Haq, Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defence for Children International, Union of Palestinian Women's Committees and Union of Agricultural Work Committees). https://nbctf.mod.gov.il/en/Pages/211021EN.aspx The designation was condemned by
Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...
,
Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...
, and the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights who called it a "frontal attack on the Palestinian human rights movement and on human rights everywhere". In July 2022, nine EU countries (
Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
,
Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...
,
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
,
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
,
Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
,
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
, the
Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
,
Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
and
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
) issued a joint statement saying they will continue working with the six Palestinian organizations that Israel had banned because Israel had failed to prove that they should be considered terrorist organisations. Reviewing secret Israel intelligence shared with the
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
, the latter could find no evidence to verify the Israeli accusations.


See also

* Palestinian prisoners in Israel


Notes


Citations


Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{refend


External links


Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
1991 establishments in Palestine Human rights organizations based in Palestine Organizations involved in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict Organizations established in 1991 Prisoner support Prisoner rights organizations