'Palestinian MPs are the most vulnerable in the world'

Palestinian parliamentarians are the “most vulnerable” in the world, an official at the Inter-Parliamentary Union Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians was quoted as saying yesterday.

The Anadolu Agency quoted the official as saying: “The number of Palestinian parliamentarians whose rights were violated is the highest in the world; amounting to 36 cases along with the case of Member of the Knesset Haneen Zoabi and a second case which we cannot announce for security reasons.”

Parliamentarians in Africa and Asia were “the most vulnerable to human rights violations this year”, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) revealed. The group recorded 118 cases of human rights violations in Africa and 78 cases in Asia.

MPs’ cases examined by IPU: Bahrain – 3 cases Iraq – 3 cases Israel – 2 cases Lebanon – 4 cases Oman – 1 case Palestine – 36 cases Yemen – 6 cases.

According to IPU report, the Middle East and North Africa came in third with the highest number of alleged human rights violations.

The official said the figures were “very disturbing” because they show that MPs all over the world are subjected to serious harassment and sometimes to death in an apparent attempt to intimidate and silence critical voices where they pay the price for defending fundamental human rights and the exercise of their right to freedom of expression”.

The report “did not address the human rights violations suffered by Egyptian MPs due to the lack of formal complaints filed by them or their loved ones to the committee,” the official explained.