The Governing Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union,

Referring to the case of the above-mentioned parliamentarians, all of whom were elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in January 2006, as outlined in the report of the Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians (CL/181/11(a)-R.1), which contains a detailed account of the circumstances of the arrest, conditions of detention and trial hearings under way against them and to the resolution adopted at its 180th session (May 2007),

Recalling the following information on file:

• The parliamentarians concerned were elected on the Change and Reform (Hamas) list in the January 2006 elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council; most of them were arrested at 2 a.m. on 29 June 2006 in the occupied West Bank, along with more than 30 ministers and mayors; on 25 September 2006 a military appeal court in the West Bank overturned an order for their release on bail issued on 12 September 2006 by the Ofer military tribunal, and they have remained in detention since;

• On 30 June 2006 the Israeli Interior Minister revoked the East Jerusalem residence permits of Mr. Muhammad Abu-Teir, Mr. Ahmad Attoun and Mr. Muhammad Totah, who is also the Palestinian Minister of Jerusalem Affairs, on the grounds that although they were deemed to be residents of the State of Israel and therefore obliged to pay allegiance to the State of Israel, their actions, namely membership in the PLC, proved that their allegiance was to the Palestinian Authority;

• The arrests and withdrawal of residence permits came in the context of Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip to obtain the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier kidnapped on 25 June 2006 in a cross-border attack on Israeli military installations, which the Israeli Government blames on Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, and which both entities refute;

• Mr. Abderrahman Zaidan was released on bail of US$ 12,000, after spending one month in detention; Mr. Ahmad Mubarak, Mr. Fat'hy Qara'wi and Mr. Hatem Qafeesheh, who had been arrested previously and released, were again seized by the Israeli Defence Forces in connection with Gilad Shalit's kidnapping,

• the charges brought against the parliaments concerned are membership, leadership and action on behalf of a terrorist organization and the underlying argument is as follows: you are a PLC member, elected on the Change and Reform list supported by Hamas, which is a terrorist organization, hence you are a member of a terrorist organization and, as a member of parliament, assuming a leadership role; the parliamentarians concerned are tried by military  courts mainly in the West Bank, sometimes also inside prison; they do not recognize the competence of the court to try them; the trial hearings, which are not public, are constantly postponed; lawyers have limited access to court files since prosecution material is often declared secret and, in this case, they are not given a copy of the charges; the court proceedings are usually as follows: the accused PLC member is brought into the courtroom and put in a cage; when the judge enters they are asked to stand up, which they refuse to do, and are then ordered out of court, which puts an end to the hearing; some of them have reportedly been asked to bear witness against their colleagues to testify that the latter had been elected on the Change and Reform list; if they refuse they are sentenced to two months' imprisonment for contempt of court; according to the Israeli so-called Tamir law, if there are two witness statements against a person, that person can be charged as accused by the witness and no further statement from him or her is needed; in a conversation with the lawyers of the parliamentarians concerned, the military prosecutor stated in March 2007 that he intended to ask for a sentence of 42 months' imprisonment, which, since at the time they had already been in detention for six months, would have amounted to serving their entire legislative term of four years;

• the parliamentarians concerned are held in several prisons inside Israel, usually located far from their homes (for example, the three parliamentarians from Jenin are held in the Negev); the procedures upon arrest and the conditions of detention, including in the case of the parliamentarians concerned, are as follows: upon arrest, detainees are strip-searched, including an inner-body search; during interrogation, they are usually handcuffed and tied to the chair; when being moved to the interrogation room, they have to wear darkened ski glasses;

• upon arrest and during the interrogation period, detainees, including the PLC members concerned, are kept in solitary confinement in small cells with no access to newspapers or TV; once the interrogation period is over, they are often held together with one or two other prisoners in small cells which are usually equipped with one water tap but with little water running, TV and sometimes a toilet; there is no fresh air and only ventilation, no sun and always dim light, and cells are insulated in such a way that no outside noise can be heard; prisoners are deprived of their watches, so that the body clock no longer works; as regards visiting rights, only first kin relatives (including wives) are allowed to visit them, but permission is not always granted; more generally, prison visits are difficult because the PLC members concerned are held in prisons in Israel and a special permit to enter Israel is required, which is difficult to obtain; they have access to a limited choice of newspapers and TV channels; the parliamentarians concerned reportedly do not receive the medical care they require; Palestinian or other Arab doctors face many obstacles to being able to examine them; the delivery of letters, books and medicaments is prohibited by the Israeli authorities or unjustifiably delayed,

Recalling that on 30 June 2006, the Israeli Interior Minister revoked the East Jerusalem residence permits of Mr. Muhammad Abu-Teir, Mr. Ahmad Attoun and Mr. Muhammad Totah on the grounds that they were deemed to be residents in the State of Israel and, therefore, obliged to pay allegiance to the State of Israel; but that nonetheless their actions - membership of the PLC - proved otherwise and indicated that their allegiance was to the Palestinian Authority; an appeal against the decision is pending before the Supreme Court; referring in this respect to the amicus curiae brief introduced by two human rights organizations before the court in which they argue the following: the Minister's decision violates the constitutional right of the parliamentarians to continue to live in their place of residence and homeland without the threat of expulsion, as well as their right to family life by preventing them from continuing to live together in East Jerusalem without the danger of separation; moreover, residency of Palestinians is essentially determined by birth and not by immigration and that they never acquired the status of immigrants, for which reason their status was never made conditional on any term and that there is therefore no justification for its cancellation; the amicus curiae brief also stresses that the issue entails a particularly complex point because of East Jerusalem's status as an occupied territory and the status of its residents as protected citizens; moreover, the State of Israel has recognized under the Oslo Accords that the Palestinian residents of the eastern part of Jerusalem are part of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, for which reason Israel permitted them to vote and to stand in the election to the PLC; only after the parliamentarians concerned were elected, and because the election results were not welcomed by the Government of Israel, did it decide to cancel their residency status, thus severely violating their rights,

1. Deplores the failure of the Israeli parliamentary authorities to respond to the IPU's repeated requests for information on the situation of the parliamentarians concerned and their lack of cooperation; can only interpret this as disregard for the serious human rights concerns the IPU has consistently expressed in this matter;

2. Notes that there has been nothing thus far likely to encourage it to change its position that the arrest and detention of the members of parliament concerned is quite unrelated to any criminal activity on their part - unless being elected in a free and fair election is considered a crime - and that their arrest and continuing detention are consequently arbitrary and violate their fundamental right to freedom;

3. Remains deeply concerned that the arrests not only prevent the parliamentarians concerned - a third of the elected Change and Reform parliamentarians - from carrying out the mandate for which they were elected, but also greatly prejudices the right of the Palestinian people to be represented by persons of their choice;

4. Urges therefore the Israeli authorities to release them forthwith, or to bring founded and recognizable charges of criminal activity against them and try them in open court fully respecting international fair trial standards;

5. Remains deeply concerned - in the absence of any official information on this point - at their conditions of detention and the lack of appropriate medical care; and urges the Israeli authorities to respect the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners and to provide the persons concerned with the medical care they require; 

6. Reiterates its wish for the Committee to be permitted to pay them a private visit;

7. Fears that the withdrawal of the residence permits of Mr. Muhammad Abu-Teir, Mr. Ahmad Attoun and Mr. Muhammad Totah, rather than being founded in law, is a politically motivated decision; notes that an appeal against that decision is pending before the Supreme Court; is confident that the proceedings before the Supreme Court will lead to the prompt restoration of their resident permits;

8. Requests the Secretary General to convey the IPU's concerns in this case to the competent Israeli authorities;

9. Requests the Committee to continue examining this case and report to it at its next session, to be held on the occasion of the 118th Assembly of the IPU (Cape Town, April 2008).

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