[AL-AWDA-News] This is not a war on Terror: Press Release (fwd)

["Clement M. Henry" <chenry@mail.la.utexas.edu>]

Obviously Arab governments are not the only obstacle to civil society in
the region.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 12:29:34 -0500
From: Ali R Hadjarian <ahadjari@gmu.edu>
To: Al-Awda-News@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [AL-AWDA-News] This is not a war on Terror: Press Release



                The Destruction of Palestinian Civil Society

PRESS RELEASE/02-04-02

 JOINT APPEAL FROM AL-MEZAN CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE PALESTINIAN
INDEPENDENT COMMISSION FOR CITIZEN?S RIGHTS.

This is not a War against Terror. It is a War against Palestine .

Israeli sources claim that the goal of their current military policy is
to destroy the ?terrorist infrastructure? in the Palestinian
territories, beginning with Ramallah and other cities in the West Bank.
We wish to expose this as disinformation designed to justify Israeli
actions against Palestinian civil society.

There is increasing evidence that Israel intends to wipe out the records
of Palestinian social and political institutions: The Ramallah office of
the Palestinian Independent Commission on Citizen?s Rights (PICCR) has
been ransacked and files have been stolen or destroyed. The full extent
of the damage is not yet known. It should be noted that the PICCR is a
national human rights organization.

Other offices raided or destroyed include the Ramallah office of Al-Haq,
an independent human rights organization; the Ramallah branch office of
the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights; the Palestinian
Medical Relief Union, and the Mandela Institution. In addition, the
Palestine Agricultural Relief Committees office has been occupied.

These politically independent offices have come under attack in order to
destroy the Palestinian civilian infrastructure of the city, to destroy
the records of civic organizations that have documented human rights
breaches by the Israeli Occupation Forces, and to undermine Palestinian
civil society in general. The aim here is to pave the way for the
re-imposition of full Israeli military and civil administration in the
Palestinian territories.

We call upon global civil society to intervene to stop these grave
breaches of international law and violations of human rights. Silence in
the face of these crimes amounts to complicity. We ask all people of
conscience to take immediate action against what is happening. This is
not a War against Terror; it is a War against Palestine .