Israel renews detention of human rights defender held without charge

Israel has renewed the administrative detention of human rights defender Salah Hammouri, who has been held in prison since March. The renewal of the detention order for another three months was announced by the Israeli authorities on Sunday, one day before Hammouri’s expected release.

His new detention order will now be scheduled to end on 4 December. However, it too can be extended under the unjust system which allows Israel to hold Palestinians on the basis of secret evidence with neither charge nor trial, indefinitely.

Hammouri, a French-Palestinian lawyer, works for Palestinian NGO Addameer. The #JusticeforSalah campaign called for his release and condemned the decision to renew his detention order.

“Only hours before his expected release from Hadarim Prison,” it explained, “the Israeli occupation authorities renewed his administrative detention. Neither Salah nor his legal representative were informed about the renewal decision leaving him, his family and loved ones in a state of continuous anxiety and psychological distress.”

Addameer also criticised the renewed detention order. “Such orders are part of the Israeli occupation’s systematic and ongoing harassment campaign to suppress Palestinian human rights defenders and civil society,” said the rights organisation.

The 36-year-old dual national spent eight years in an Israeli prison between 2006 and 2012. Last October, Israel revoked Hammouri’s residency in Jerusalem and rejected his appeal against the decision in December. Furthermore, an Israeli court also ordered Hammouri to live in Kufr Aqab, on the edge of occupied East Jerusalem.

“We call on states, international institutions and all third parties to take concrete action against the Israeli occupation authorities’ continued harassment and criminalisation of Palestinian human rights defenders and civil society,” said Addameer. “We also call for the release of Salah Hammouri and all other Palestinian political prisoners held arbitrarily in Israeli prisons.”

READ: Israel’s closure of Palestine NGOs a result of US inaction, Congresswoman Tlaib says