ISRAEL’S ARRESTS AND TRIAL OF THE NORTHERN ISLAMIC MOVEMENT

Today the Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA) publishes a report which it believes shows the Israeli government imprisoning a political and religious leader on the basis of false charges.

Sheikh Ra’ad Salah, and four of his colleagues from the Northern Islamic Movement, a public and legal political movement in Israel, are imprisoned on the basis of charges which make false and inflammatory links to Hamas, and which make false accusations of money transfers to “terror” in the Occupied Territories.

The report details these charges and the responses of the Northern Islamic Movement and their legal team: “no money has been transferred by the Islamic Movement to the Occupied Territories except monthly stipends from Arab families in Israel to families of orphans in the Occupied Territories.” taken from page 1 of the report.

The HRA notes in the report’s conclusions that the political Islam practiced by the Northern Islamic Movement is focused on social welfare problems that are part of an effort to close the service gap between Jewish and Arab citizens in Israel. This service gap is a result of systematic state discrimination in budgetary allocations to Arab citizens.

The HRA fears that the lack of international response and international interest encourages and strengthens a feeling that there are double standards in human rights.

We would like to ask for an international observer presence at the trial of Sheikh Ra’ad Salah, and his colleagues.

The HRA calls on the international community to protest these arrests, and to protect the right of our Palestinian minority inside Israel to free and independent participation in politics.