[ad_1]
Israel has asked the Jerusalem District Court to allow it to defer its response to the court in the case of a US human rights defender threatened with deportation. Israel because of its alleged involvement in the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
The state says it needs time to understand the legal consequences of the successful appeal of Lara Alqasem, the American student prevented from entering Israel for her alleged support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
In May, Israel ordered the deportation of Omar Shakir, a senior Human Rights Watch official, citing his alleged anti-Israel activities and involvement in the BDS movement. Shakir rejects the charges.
>> Israel wants to expel a Human Rights Watch official As well as Egypt and Syria
Shakir, a US citizen who previously worked for Human Rights Watch based in New York, Egypt and Syria, has 14 days to leave Israel after learning that his work visa was not renewed, according to a statement by Inside, Arye Dery.
The Jerusalem District Court issued an injunction later in May, temporarily suspending the deportation of Shakir, claiming that the government did not base its expulsion decision on new information, but on facts known to the government. Ministry of Foreign Affairs when he had granted the visa to Shakir.
In July, the Jerusalem District Court ordered the Israeli government to formally respond to Human Rights Watch's appeal against its decision to revoke Shakir's work permit and expel him.
The state's deadline for response is 21 October, but it is now asking for additional time until 1 December to study the legal ramifications of the Alqasem appeal, as the Court Supreme Court of Israel granted Thursday.
Dery said the decision was based on a recommendation from the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, according to which the information gathered about Shakir indicated that he was actively participating in the BDS movement.
Shakir and the organization, which has been operating in Israel for 30 years, have denied the charges brought by the government. They accused Israel of trying to prevent human rights defenders from doing their job.
The deportation order seems to be the first time Israel's so-called anti-boycott law has been used to expel a person who was already in Israel. In other cases, these deportations took place when suspected BDS activists arrived at the country's main port, Ben Gurion Airport, for planned visits to Israel and the occupied territories.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court welcomed the appeal of Lara Alqasem, the American student prevented from entering Israel while she had received a student visa from the Israeli consulate in Miami . Alqasem, 22, who, according to the state, was a BDS activist, was arrested on October 2 and held for two weeks in a detention center at Ben Gurion International Airport after that. she was designated as a BDS activist. Alqasemis enrolled in the Hebrew University Master of Human Rights program.
In March 2017, Israel passed an amendment to its law on entry into Israel, allowing authorities to deny entry to those who claim to be BDS activists.
Shakir's case is the third case related to this month's anti-boycott law. In addition to Alqasem, an administrative appeal court in Jerusalem in early October invalidated a state decision banning entry into the country by Isabel Phiri, deputy secretary-general of the World Council of Churches, for her support of the BDS.
In his judgment, the judge ruled that the anti-BDS legislation could not be applied retroactively to prohibit a BDS activist from going to Israel and that the reasoning that had been provided to him at the time, prompting the Concern related to "illegal immigration", was unfounded.
Haaretz obtained details on the basic file prepared by the Ministry of Strategic Affairs regarding Shakir. The drafters of the document examined Shakir's involvement in boycotting between 2010 and 2017, saying he was involved in a number of incidents, including the attempt to suspend Israel from FIFA. [international soccer association], the attempt to create an organization calling for boycott and divestment of Israel when he was a student at Stanford University, and involved in "BDS's constant demand for conferences, discussions and social networks for years ".
The document also states that Shakir has signed a petition to prevent a Muslim delegation to Israel from surrendering in 2015. "It is clear that Shakir continues to encourage boycott promotion activities against Israel even after obtaining of a work permit, "says the document. Shakir went to Bahrain before the FIFA Congress, during which the proposal to suspend Israel, at the request of the Palestinian Football Association, was debated in an attempt to pressure FIFA, indicates the document.
The document also mentions various statements Shakir made "concerning the activities of the organization with the High Commissioner of the United Nations Human Rights Council in which the urgent need to publish a database of the UN that includes names on the issue of Israeli international companies We have focused on the operation in Judea and Samaria and, in practice, supported the publication of a "blacklist".
Shakir's comments on Twitter, in which he promotes a Human Rights Watch report on Israeli banking activities in the West Bank, were also mentioned in the document.
[ad_2]Source link
