{"id":4858,"date":"2022-12-19T08:48:39","date_gmt":"2022-12-19T08:48:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/?p=4858"},"modified":"2022-12-19T08:48:40","modified_gmt":"2022-12-19T08:48:40","slug":"palestinian-french-rights-lawyer-hammouri-deported-by-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/palestinian-french-rights-lawyer-hammouri-deported-by-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"Palestinian-French rights lawyer Hammouri deported by Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hammouri had been held in Israeli administrative detention based on \u2018secret evidence\u2019 without charges since March.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israel says it has deported Palestinian-French human rights lawyer Salah Hammouri, capping a years-long attempt to expel the Jerusalem-born advocate who had been in detention without charges since March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deportation came amid\u00a0calls\u00a0for French President Emmanuel Macron to oppose the deportation to France, whose foreign ministry spokeswoman had previously said Hammouri \u201cmust be able to exercise all his rights and lead a normal life in Jerusalem, his city of birth and residence\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

France\u2019s Foreign Ministry condemned Israel\u2019s deportation of Hammouri after he landed in Paris, saying it has \u201ctaken full action, including at the highest level of the state, to ensure that Mr. Salah Hamouri\u2019s rights are respected, that he benefits from all legal remedies and that he can lead a normal life in Jerusalem, where he was born, resides and wishes to live.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was not clear what, if any, steps the French government might take.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hammouri landed in Paris just before 10am local time. Wearing a black track suit and black and white keffiyeh, or Palestinian headscarf, around his neck, he was greeted by his wife and a group of supporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some hugged him, and others clapped in support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to reporters, Hammouri accused Israel of \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d and said his deportation was meant \u201cto show the generations that nobody can resist Israel.\u201d He vowed to fight the order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI will continue my right to resist against this occupation until I have the right to go back to my country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier, the Justice for Salah campaign released an audio message from Hammouri, which he said was recorded as he was being \u201cforcibly deported and uprooted from my homeland\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBe assured my beloved homeland that I coercively and forcibly leave you today. I leave you today from prison to exile,\u201d he said. \u201cBut rest assured I will always remain the person you know. Always loyal to you and to your freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a brief statement on Sunday, Israel\u2019s interior minister, Ayelet Shaked, called Hammouri a \u201cterrorist\u201d and confirmed he had been deported. Hammouri\u2019s Jerusalem residency status had previously been revoked<\/a> by Israel in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israeli authorities have said Hammouri is an activist in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Hammouri has denied the allegation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A field researcher with the Ramallah-based Addameer prisoners\u2019 rights group, Hammouri\u2019s detention in March sparked condemnation from local and international rights observers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early December, Heba Morayef, Amnesty International\u2019s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, charged that Hammouri had been detained \u201cin retaliation for his tireless campaigning for an end to Israel\u2019s apartheid against Palestinians\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She called the detention part of Israel\u2019s \u201cchilling long-term policy aim of reducing the number of Palestinians in East Jerusalem\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnlawful deportation from the occupied Palestinian territories constitutes a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a war crime,\u201d she said, noting that such crimes would fall under the jurisdiction<\/a> of the International Criminal Court (ICC). \u201cDeportation carried to maintain a system of apartheid constitutes a crime against humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hammouri, a 37-year-old father of two, had been held in Israeli\u00a0administrative detention<\/a>, which allows for the imprisonment of Palestinians without trial or charge based on \u201csecret evidence\u201d, which neither the detainee nor his lawyer can view, for an indefinite period of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israel has long maintained the policy is necessary for security to prevent state intelligence from being released, but the Israeli human rights organisation B\u2019tselem says the method is used \u201cas an alternative to criminal trial \u2026 when [the authorities] do not have sufficient evidence for indictment\u201d. The organisation labels the procedure \u201cpunitive and retroactive\u201d and says Israel uses it to \u201cdetain Palestinians for their political opinions and for engaging in non-violent political activity\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The detention order was renewed in June and September, with the deportation announced on Sunday coming at the end of the latest extension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a tweet late on Saturday, the HaMoked rights group, which had been fighting Hammouri\u2019s deportation, questioned whether France would support the \u201cdeportation of a member of the indigenous population against his will\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

France has not released a public statement on the deportation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a letter published by the New Arab last week, Hammouri, who is among a cadre of rights workers suing Israel<\/a> after their phones were allegedly hacked by Pegasus spyware made by the Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group, detailed his detention, which he called Israel\u2019s \u201ceighth attempt to expel me\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He had previously served a seven-year prison sentence on the charge of plotting to kill a former chief rabbi of Israel, a deal he took in lieu of deportation to France, although he has always denied the allegation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His wife, Elsa Lefort, had also been deported earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese are the means of forcible expulsion, of gradual uprooting from my land, my home, my social surroundings, my history in this place,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut these are not my memories alone, but those of a people whose Nakba (\u201cCatastrophe\u201d) has not ceased since 1948, experiencing daily arrest, expulsion, surveillance, monitoring, harassment, killing and displacement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Sunday, the Justice for Salah campaign called the deportation a \u201chorrifying escalation in Israel\u2019s systematic practices of ethnically cleansing Palestinians from illegally annexed and occupied Jerusalem (al-Quds)\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Palestinians born in occupied East Jerusalem are not granted Israeli citizenship. They are instead given permanent residency, which can be revoked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hammouri had been held in Israeli administrative detention based on \u2018secret evidence\u2019 without charges since March. Israel says it has deported Palestinian-French human rights lawyer Salah Hammouri, capping a years-long attempt to expel the Jerusalem-born advocate who had been in detention without charges since March. The deportation came amid\u00a0calls\u00a0for French President Emmanuel Macron to oppose …<\/p>","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":4859,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308,187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-308","category-187"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4858"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4861,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858\/revisions\/4861"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}