Lobby for Human Rights in Jerusalem -
CAMPAIGN TO END ID CARD CONFISCATION
BADIL Resource Center
24 March 1999
For Immediate Release
Dear friends, dear partners,
For those of you who would like to join the
Lobby for Human Rights in Jerusalem in this Campaign by addressing Israeli authorities and
international policy makers to demand a halt of the policy of ID-card confiscations from
Palestinian Jerusalemites, we have prepared the following sample letter for guidance:
SAMPLE LETTER
[your address]
[date]
Eli Suissa
Ministry of Interior
2 Kaplan Street
PO Box 6158
Kiryat Ben-Gurion
Jerusalem 91061
fax: (972) 2-670-1628
Your Excellency Eli Suissa:
On 22 April 1999, the Israeli Supreme Court will
decide on the legality of
Jerusalem ID card confiscation. This policy,
implemented by the Interior
Ministry, has lead to the forceful eviction of
2,083 Palestinian Jerusalemites
from 1996 to 1998 according to official Israeli
data.
We wish to express our deep concern over the
policy of ID card confiscation in occupied Jerusalem and express our dismay at the very
concept of Palestinians being made strangers in their hometown. We also express our
alarm at the increasing number of ID cards confiscated in the past three years due to the
implementation of the "center of life" policy in 1996.
We believe the policy of revoking the Jerusalem
residency status of
Palestinians, which engenders the forceful eviction
of those Palestinian
residents from Jerusalem, is discriminatory, unjust
and contrary to
international law including the Fourth Geneva
Convention (art 49) and the
Covenant for Civil and Political Rights (art.
12).
We strongly urge you to end the policy of ID
card confiscation and to grant East Jerusalem Palestinian residents a status that cannot
be terminated, to reinstate the status of those Palestinians whose residency rights were
revoked, and to allow Palestinian families to be re-united.
Sincerely,
[Name]
Please forward a copy of your letter to
the Lobby and to:
Thierry Bechet
Head of Mission
EC Delegation to OPT
PO Box 22207
5 Sheikh Hussam Eddin Jarralah St.
Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem
fax: (972) 2-532-6249
Benjamin Netayahu
Office of the Prime Minister
3 Kaplan Street
PO Box 187
Kiryat Ben-Gurion
Jerusalem 91061
fax: (972) 2-670-1628
Martin S. Indyk
Assistant Secretary of State
Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs
Office of Public Affairs, Rm. 6242
Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
USA
fax: (202) 647-7120
Lobby for Human Rights in Jerusalem/Campaign to
End ID Card Confiscation
Adameer, BADIL Resource Center, Citizens' Rights
Center-Arab Thought Forum, Freedom's Defense Center, Jerusalem Center for Women, Palestine
Human Rights Information Center, Women's Affairs Technical Committee, Women's Center for
Legal Aid and Counseling
For additional information contact any of the
organizations listed above or
BADIL, tel/fax. 02-2747346; email: info@badil.org |