{"id":4669,"date":"2012-06-20T11:48:32","date_gmt":"2012-06-20T09:48:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/?p=4669"},"modified":"2012-06-20T11:50:47","modified_gmt":"2012-06-20T09:50:47","slug":"muhammad-amirah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/2012\/06\/20\/muhammad-amirah\/","title":{"rendered":"The Case of Muhammad Amirah and the Criminalization of Protest in the West Bank"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>On 20 June 2011 Ni&#8217;lin resident Muhammad Amirah was charged with incitement and support for a hostile organization and disturbing a soldier<\/li>\n<li>Amirah was arrested during a nonviolent protest near the village of Deir Kaddis, against the expansion of the settlement Nili, in which he sat down in front of a tractor and demanded that the work cease<\/li>\n<li>Amirah&#8217;s case does not include any charges or mentions of violence and is thus an important example of the criminalization of all political activity by Palestinians in the West Bank, including actions recognized by all as nonviolent.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\nAmirah\u2019s case exemplifies the extent to which ALL protest action \u2013 including explicitly nonviolent actions are criminalized within the Israeli system in the West Bank. Amirah was sitting on the ground in front of a tractor repeating the phrase &#8220;I am not engaging in violence, I will not commit a violent deed&#8221; and was still arrested and charged.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nEven with NO charges of violence against him, the protest action is perceived as a security threat and a criminal act.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIn addition, Amirah&#8217;s case is a great example of the ambiguity of the term &#8220;Legal demonstration&#8221; in that West Bank that is a result of both the illegal and inapplicable legislation that regulates demonstrations in the West Bank (especially the Order Regarding Prohibition of Incitement and Hostile Propaganda Actions (<em>Order 101<\/em>) from 1967) that does not recognize any form of protest in the WB as legal protest, and the lack of Judicial Review on this legislation. This case reflects not only the ambiguity of the &#8220;legal demonstration&#8221;, but also the dangerous implications of this ambiguity of freedom of expression and the right to protest in the West Bank.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>To download ACRI&#8217;s full briefer on the Amirah case, <a href=\"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/ACRI-Muhammad-Amira-briefer-17June2012-ENG.pdf\">click here (English PDF).<\/strong><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Further background on the right to protest in the West Bank:<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/2011\/09\/18\/rights-of-demonstrators-in-the-occupied-territories\/\">Rights of Demonstrators in the Occupied Territories<\/a> \u2013 ACRI info-sheet<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.btselem.org\/sites\/default\/files2\/publication\/20100715_right_to_demonstrate_eng.pdf\">The Right to Demonstrate in the West Bank<\/a> \u2013 a B&#8217;Tselem report<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.btselem.org\/publications\/summaries\/201109_show_of_force\">\u201cShow of Force\u201d<\/a> \u2013 B\u2019Tselem report on Israeli military conduct in weekly demonstrations in Nabi Saleh<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/2012\/02\/19\/this-is-how-palestinian-minors-are-interrogated-the-case-of-a\/%20\">\u201cThis is how Palestinian minors are interrogated\u201d<\/a> \u2013 ACRI briefer on the case of A. from Nabi Saleh<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/2012\/05\/29\/bassem-tamimi-sentence\/\">Bassem Tamimi&#8217;s Sentence &#8211; Injury to Freedom of Expression in the Occupied Territory<\/a> &#8211; ACRI Update\/Position paper<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/2011\/11\/07\/illegal-use-of-closed-military-zone-orders-to-restrict-legal-protest\/\">Illegal Use of Closed Military Zone Orders to Restrict Legal Protest in the Occupied Territories<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 20 June 2011 Ni&#8217;lin resident Muhammad Amirah was charged with incitement and support for a hostile organization and disturbing &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/2012\/06\/20\/muhammad-amirah\/\">Read more<span class=\"meta-nav\">&#8230;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,70,5],"tags":[83],"class_list":["post-4669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-freedom-of-expression","category-human-rights-defenders","category-the-occupied-territories","tag-publications"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4669"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4681,"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4669\/revisions\/4681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.acri.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}