{"id":73520,"date":"2016-05-16T12:00:04","date_gmt":"2016-05-16T11:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=73520"},"modified":"2016-05-12T17:23:17","modified_gmt":"2016-05-12T16:23:17","slug":"israel-imposes-travel-ban-on-bds-co-founder-omar-barghouti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/05\/israel-imposes-travel-ban-on-bds-co-founder-omar-barghouti\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel Imposes Travel Ban on BDS Co-Founder Omar Barghouti"},"content":{"rendered":"

10 May 2016 – <\/em>Israel has imposed an effective travel ban on Omar Barghouti<\/a>, one of the founders of the Palestinian movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS).<\/p>\n

This follows explicit threats made against him by Israeli government ministers.<\/p>\n

\"Omar<\/a>

Omar Barghouti (Intal\/Flickr)<\/p><\/div>\n

Israel has officially refused to renew Barghouti\u2019s travel document, a move that the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) said \u201camounts to a travel ban and is an escalation of its attacks on Palestinian human rights defenders who nonviolently advocate for Palestinian rights under international law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarah Leah Whitson<\/a>, executive director of Human Rights Watch\u2019s<\/a> Middle East and North Africa division, told The Electronic Intifada that \u201cIsrael\u2019s refusal to renew Barghouti\u2019s travel document appears to be an effort to punish him for exercising his right to engage in peaceful, political activism, using its arsenal of bureaucratic control over Palestinian lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSadly, Israel has used this sort of control to arbitrarily ban many Palestinians from traveling, as well as to ban international human rights monitors, journalists and activists from entering Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories,\u201d Whitson added.<\/p>\n

Undeterred<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a press release on Tuesday, the BNC said that Barghouti, who lives in Akka, in the north of present-day Israel, \u201chas Israeli permanent residency and requires an Israeli travel document to be able to travel in and out of Palestine\/Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

The BNC warned that \u201cIsrael\u2019s decision not to grant a renewal of the travel document on baseless bureaucratic pretenses is being viewed by human rights experts as the first step towards revoking Barghouti\u2019s permanent residency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barghouti\u2019s immediate reaction was: \u201cI am unnerved but certainly undeterred by these threats. Nothing will stop me from struggling for my people\u2019s freedom, justice and peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving failed to stop the growth of BDS in the mainstream, Israel is now launching a desperate and dangerous global war of repression on the movement,\u201d BNC general coordinator Mahmoud Nawajaa said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter losing many battles for the hearts and minds at the grassroots level, Israel and its well-oiled lobby groups are pressuring Western states to implement patently anti-democratic measures that threaten civil liberties at large,\u201d Nawajaa added, in reference to a raft of anti-BDS legislation<\/a> in the US and several European states.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy banning our colleague Omar Barghouti from travelling and threatening him with physical violence, Israel is showing the lengths it will go to in order to stop the spread of the nonviolent BDS movement for Palestinian freedom, justice and equality,\u201d Nawajaa said.<\/p>\n

Threats<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Israeli move follows threats made against Barghouti and other Palestinian human rights defenders by top Israeli government ministers in March.<\/p>\n

Interior minister Aryeh Deri<\/a> had explicitly threatened<\/a> to revoke Barghouti\u2019s residency on the grounds that \u201che is using his resident status to travel all over the world in order to operate against Israel in the most serious manner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israeli intelligence minister Yisrael Katz<\/a> called for a campaign of \u201ctargeted civil eliminations\u201d of BDS leaders with the help of Israeli intelligence. The Hebrew term Katz used was similar to the Israeli term for \u201ctargeted assassinations.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Gilad Erdan<\/a>, the Israeli minister in charge of combating BDS, also said that activists including Barghouti should \u201cpay the price\u201d for their work.<\/p>\n

At the time, Amnesty International strongly condemned these threats<\/a>, warning that \u201can escalation of acts of intimidation by the government and attacks and threats by settlers and other non-state actors have created an increasingly dangerous environment\u201d for human rights defenders in Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n

The group expressed particular concern for the \u201csafety and liberty of Palestinian human rights defender Omar Barghouti, and other boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) activists, following calls alluding to threats, including of physical harm and deprivation of basic rights, made by Israeli ministers.\u201d<\/p>\n

EU representatives, by contrast, refused to condemn the Israeli threats<\/a>, sending Israel a tacit signal that it could proceed with its repression campaign.<\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/p>\n

Ali Abunimah – <\/em>Co-founder of <\/em>The Electronic Intifada and author of <\/em>The Battle for Justice in Palestine<\/a>, now out from Haymarket Books, and of <\/em>One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 electronicintifada.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said that \u201cIsrael\u2019s refusal to renew Barghouti\u2019s travel document appears to be an effort to punish him for exercising his right to engage in peaceful, political activism, using its arsenal of bureaucratic control over Palestinian lives.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73520\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}