PLC members get their first hearing after five years

Editor Palestine Monitor/18 May 2011

On Tuesday, 17 May, Israel’s High Court in Jerusalem heard the case of four legislators from Jerusalem, whose residency rights were revoked in 2006 when they were elected to the Hamas-led Palestinian Legislative Council. While the judge did not adjudicate on their case, after five years of waiting, the hearing is seen as a progress.

Deputies Mohammed Mahmoud Abu Teir, Ahmed Mohammed Atoun, Mohammad Imran Totah and the former Minister of Jerusalem Affairs Khaled Ibrahim Abu Arafah were first arrested in late January 2006 after they defied Israel’s Ministry of Interior’s order to resign from their elected positions.

The men were prosecuted before an Israeli military court, and sentenced to two to four years in Israeli prisons.

Following their release from prison, the men were given deportation notices with the deadline of 2 July 2010.

On 30 June 2010, Muhammed Abu Teir was arrested in Jerusalem. The other three men immediately sought asylum in the International Red Cross headquarters in Jerusalem on 1 July 2010, in an effort to avoid being arrested or physically deported. Since last summer, the three men have lived at the IRC headquarters.

The three legislators contest the Israeli government’s decision to revoke their residency rights. Pointing to the men’s participation in elections for the Palestinian parliament as evidence, Israel has charged the men for being disloyal to the state of Israel.

For Mohammad Totah, the ramifications of Israel deporting the men on charges of “disloyalty” are huge. In an interview conducted by Electronic Intifada, Totah warned that their deportation could unleash a watershed of deportations on similar grounds, “It means deporting thousands of people from East Jerusalem for disloyalty. This word does not have any dimensions or any measures, so they can claim that anybody living in East Jerusalem … is disloyal to the Israeli occupation and then deport him. We know that it is one of the main objectives of the Israeli plan to empty East Jerusalem of the Palestinian people.”

URL du billet: http://palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article1819