Israel/OPT: Further Information: NGO worker's administrative detention renewed: Salah Hammouri
On 27 June, an Israel court confirmed, for the second time, the renewal of the administrative detention of NGO worker and lawyer Salah Hammouri for a further three months. He has been held by Israel without charge or trial since 23 August 2017.
Further information on UA: 226/17 Index: MDE 15/8798/2018 Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories Date: 24 July 2018
URGENT ACTION
NGO WORKER’S ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTION RENEWED
On 27 June, an Israel court confirmed, for the second time, the renewal of the
administrative detention of NGO worker and lawyer Salah Hammouri for a further three
months. He has been held by Israel without charge or trial since 23 August 2017.
On 27 June, an Israeli district court in Jerusalem confirmed, for the second time, the administrative detention order
issued by Israeli Minister of Defence Avigdor Lieberman against Salah Hammouri for a further three months. Salah
Hammouri is a French-Palestinian NGO worker and lawyer. His detention is now expected to end on 30 September.
Salah Hammouri, who is currently held in Ketziot prison in southern Israel, had been given a six-month administrative
detention order on 17 September 2017, which was renewed again on 5 March for another four months.
Salah Hammouri, along with other administrative detainees, is engaged in a collective boycott of Israeli courts, which
started on 15 February, to demand an end to the policy of administrative detention, which allows the Israeli authorities
to hold detainees indefinitely on secret information without charging or trying them.
Israeli forces detained Salah Hammouri during an overnight raid on 23 August 2017 at his home in the occupied East
Jerusalem neighbourhood of Kafr Aqab. Salah Hammouri is a resident of East Jerusalem. His legal studies were
repeatedly disrupted by the Israeli authorities barring him from entering the West Bank from March 2015 until
September 2016, where his university is located. He graduated in 2017 and three days before his arrest, he passed
the Palestinian bar examination to be certified as a practicing lawyer. Salah Hammouri works as a field researcher
in Jerusalem for Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, a Palestinian human rights organization
based in Ramallah, Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).
Please write immediately in English, Hebrew or your own language calling on the Israeli authorities to:
Calling on the Israeli authorities to release Salah Hammouri, and all others who have been placed under administrative
detention, unless they are promptly charged with an internationally recognizable crime and tried in proceedings that adhere
to international fair trial standards;
Calling on the Israeli authorities to stop the harassment and arbitrary detention of Palestinian human rights workers including
Addameer staff and board members;
Urging the Israeli authorities to take immediate steps to end the practice of administrative detention.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 05 SEPTEMBER 2018 TO:
Minister of Defence
Avigdor Lieberman
Ministry of Defence
37 Kaplan Street, Hakirya
Tel Aviv 61909, Israel
Email: minister@mod.gov.il
pniot@mod.gov.il
Fax: +972 3 691 6940
Salutation: Dear Minister
Commander of the IDF – West Bank
Major-General Roni Numa
GOC Central Command
Military Post 02367, Battalion 877
Israel Defence Forces, Israel
Fax: +972 2 530 5741, +972 2 530 5724
Salutation: Dear Major-General Roni
Numa
And copies to:
Minister of Public Security
Gilad Erdan
Kiryat Hamemshala
PO Box 18182
Jerusalem 91181, Israel
Fax: +972 2 584 7872
Email: gerdan@knesset.gov.il
Salutation: Dear Minister
Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country. Please insert local diplomatic addresses below:
Name Address 1 Address 2 Address 3 Fax Fax number Email Email address Salutation Salutation
Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date. This is the second update of UA 226/17. Further information:
www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/7211/2017/en/.
URGENT ACTION
NGO WORKER’S ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTION RENEWED
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Salah Hammouri was arrested during an overnight raid on 23 August 2017 at his home in the occupied East Jerusalem
neighbourhood of Kafr Aqab. He was then transferred to the Israel Security Agency (ISA) detention centre within the Russian
Compound in Jerusalem. On 5 September, the day of a hearing to confirm the six-month administrative detention order issued by
Israel’s Minister of Defence Avigdor Lieberman on 17 August, an Israeli district court in Jerusalem decided instead to reinstate
three of the six months remaining from a prison sentence Salah Hammouri had served following a conviction in 2005. The
prosecution appealed against the decision, requesting that the period of imprisonment be extended. However, on 13 September,
Israel’s High Court overruled the reinstatement of the sentence. On 17 September, the district court in Jerusalem confirmed the
initial six-month administrative detention order.
According to Addameer, on 2 January, Salah Hammouri was transferred by the Israel Prison Service (IPS) from Ketziot prison, in
southern Israel, to Megiddo prison, in northern Israel, as a punishment for doing an interview while in detention with a French
journalist in which he discussed Israel’s policy of administrative detention. He was held in Megiddo prison until 29 January and
then was transferred back to Ketziot prison.
Israeli authorities had previously imprisoned Salah Hammouri for seven years on charges related to his alleged involvement in
the plot to kill Israel’s former chief rabbi, he was however released as part of a prisoner exchange deal in 2011. The Israeli
authorities banned Salah Hammouri, who is resident of East Jerusalem, from entering other parts of the occupied West Bank from
March 2015 until September 2016. The Israeli authorities have also banned his wife Elsa Lefort, also a French national, from
entering the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) or Israel since 2016. In February 2016, Elsa Lefort was deported from Israel
after being detained for three days at a detention centre near Ben Gurion airport. She and their two-year-old child have not been
able to see him since his arrest. Salah Hammouri’s family, including his wife, child and father in-law, have been harassed and
threatened by unknown people, after a French website published their contact details. Khalida Jarrar, a board member of
Addameer, has also been held in administrative detention since 2 July 2017, and three staff members of the organization are
banned by the Israeli authorities from travelling outside Israel and the OPT.
Administrative detention – ostensibly introduced as an exceptional measure to detain people who pose an extreme and imminent
danger to security – is used by Israel as an alternative to arresting, charging and prosecuting people suspected of criminal
offences, or to detain people who should not have been arrested at all. Orders can be renewed indefinitely and evidence is kept
secret, meaning that detainees are not able to effectively challenge their detention and do not know when they will be released.
Amnesty International believes that some Palestinians who were held in administrative detention by Israel were prisoners of
conscience, held solely for the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression, assembly or association. According to
Addameer, as of June 2018, there were 442 administrative detainees, including two children and three legislative council
members, held without charge or trial by Israel.
All but one of the Israeli prisons holding Palestinian administrative detainees are located inside Israel. The detention of
Palestinians from the OPT inside Israel violates international law. The Fourth Geneva Convention stipulates that detainees from
occupied territories must be held in the occupied territory, not in the territory of the occupying power.
Amnesty International has documented an escalation of acts of intimidation by the Israeli government against human rights
activists in the OPT. Israel has also taken steps to curtail freedom of expression inside Israel with officials using intimidation and
smear campaigns to target human rights organizations and their staff.
Name: Salah Hammouri
Gender m/f: m
Further information on UA: 226/17 Index: MDE 15/8798/2018 Issue Date: 24 July 2018