Military directive regarding movement restrictionsYesterday (28 February 2012), the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) filed a letter with Brig. Gen. Hagai Mordechai, the Israeli Military commander of the Judea and Samaria Division, urgently requesting him to issue guidance to military commanders in respect of their obligation to allow Israelis and international citizens to participate in demonstrations in the Occupied Territories, and to prevent the field commanders’ misuse of authority to restrict demonstrators’ freedoms of movement and expression.
On two different occasions in the past month, military commanders prohibited entire buses of Israeli and international activists and journalists from entering the Occupied Territories to participate in planned, peaceful demonstrations and solidarity protests, relying on a military directive titled “Instruction on Limitation of Movement and Traffic.” The directive specifies that it is to be used when “required by security reasons and in order to maintain public order.” In one of the cases, the activists were even told that the directive “authorized the detention of people suspected of disturbing public order, and that from the police’s perspective, everyone on the bus is suspect.”
The directive was cited as authority on two occasions in February 2012:
- On 8.2.12, to prevent activists from participating in a Tu B’shvat planting event in Al-Janiya organized by Rabbis for Human Rights; and
- On 17.2.12, to prevent activists from participating in a demonstration commemorating seven years in the struggle against the separation barrier in Bil’in.
In her letter to the commander, ACRI attorney Raghad Jaraisy writes:
“These two cases raise substantial concern of a new course of action of arbitrary use of directives to restrict passage at checkpoints that inflicts draconian injury on the freedoms of expression and demonstration of the activists, as well as on the freedoms of expression and demonstration of the Palestinian residents. This injury becomes more severe when considered in light of the fact that is undertaken only on the basis of suspicion, aimed at an entire group of journalists, activists and academics, and without any probability of a security threat in the area.”
According to Jaraisy, “the use of the directive is worrisome and especially outrageous in light of the fact that its declared goal is the prevention of cooperation between Israeli and international activists and Palestinian residents. Apparently the security forces, for whom it is a given that Palestinians have no right to protest in the territories, have now found a way to violate the rights of Israeli activists who come to express solidarity with the Palestinian population.”
ACRI’s letter (in Hebrew)
The Directive (in Hebrew)
For ACRI’s informational leaflet on the rights of demonstrators and freedom of protest in the Occupied Territories, click here.
