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 in January 2006, and to the resolution adopted at its 189th session (October 2011),
                   Taking into account the letter from the Speaker of the Knesset dated 4 January 2012,

Referring to the report (CL/189/11(b)-R.2) on the hearing of 26 July 2011 before the Supreme Court regarding the revocation of the Jerusalem residence permits of Mr. Muhammad Abu-Teir, Mr. Ahmad Attoun and Mr. Mohamed Totah, prepared by the IPU trial observer, Mr. Alex McBride,

Recalling the following: the parliamentarians concerned were elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council in January 2006 on the Electoral Platform for Change and Reform and were arrested following the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier on 25 June 2006; they were prosecuted and found guilty of membership of a terrorist organization (Hamas), of holding a seat in parliament on behalf of that organization, of providing services to it by sitting on parliamentary committees, and of supporting an illegal organization; they were sentenced to prison terms of up to 40 months,

Considering that, while most of the parliamentarians concerned were released after serving their sentences, many were subsequently rearrested, sometimes several times, and placed in administrative detention, and that 23 of them are reportedly currently being held in administrative detention, nine of them for more than a year,

Bearing in mind the following information provided regarding administrative detention:

• According to the Israeli authorities, Hamas members of the Palestinian Legislative Council have had to be held in administrative detention in recent years because "they have frequently abused their positions and immunities as parliamentarians to promote and facilitate the terrorist activities of Hamas, including through the collection of funds in support of Hamas’ military operations, and the recruitment of human and other resources in order to improve Hamas’ organizational strength";

• The Israeli authorities point out that Military Order 1651, which empowers the commander of the Israeli Defence Forces to hold a person in administrative detention for up to six months and to prolong that detention if the rationale for it is still applicable, is based on the Law of Belligerent Occupation, a regular procedure as prescribed in Article 78 of the Fourth 1949 Geneva Convention and a legal instrument used to maintain public order or security in the area; the Israeli Supreme Court has ruled, that in order to apply the exceptional measure of administrative detention, there must be current and reliable information that a person poses a specific and concrete threat, and all alternative criminal procedures must have been exhausted before recourse is had to administrative detention; there are two avenues of judicial review, namely the independent and impartial military courts, which have the authority to assess the material relevant to the detainee in question in order to determine whether the decision to detain him/her was reasonable given his/her general rights to a fair trial and freedom of movement, and military prosecution, which implements a "cautious and level-headed" policy in the use of administrative detention, an approach reflected in fewer administrative detention orders;

• In his letter of 4 January 2012, the Speaker of the Knesset stresses that those detained have the right to appeal their detentions or other aspects of their handling before a second instance of appeal within the military court and to petition Israel’s Supreme Court; the Speaker refers to two examples of Hamas officials who appealed their administrative detention orders (Mr. Omar Matar, a member of the Palestine Legislative Council (PAL/16) and Mr. Anwar Zboun (PAL/22), but whose appeals were subsequently rejected by the Court; the Speaker stresses that "every issuance of an Administrative Detention Order is regularly given serious consideration by both the prosecution and the Court"; he points to the case of Mr. Hamza Julis, who was released on 5 September 2011, and to the fact that the prosecution decided not to request an additional period of administrative detention in his case; in other instances, he continues, "the court has limited the prosecution’s ability to request additional detention orders. In the case of Mr. Nazar Abdullah Alguad, the court ruled in the judicial review of his current administrative detention for the period of 28/10/2011 - 28/02/2012, that unless new and serious evidence will be brought before it, it will not approve a new administrative order";

• Human rights organizations in and outside Israel have stressed that military commanders in the West Bank are entitled to impose administrative detention of up to six months if they have "reasonable grounds to presume that the security of the area or public security requires detention"; the Military Order does not define the terms "security of the area" and "public security" or stipulate a maximum cumulative period of administrative detention; it thus allows indefinite arbitrary detention; charges against prisoners, including the parliamentarians in question, are usually related to a "security threat", but the area and nature of the threat are not specified and evidence not disclosed; although administrative detainees are entitled to appeal, this right is ineffective as the detainees and their lawyers do not have access to the information on which the orders are based and are therefore unable to present a meaningful defence,

• On 28 May 2006, the then Israeli Minister of the Interior revoked the Jerusalem residence permits of Mr. Abu-Teir, Mr. Totah and Mr. Attoun, arguing that they had shown disloyalty to Israel by holding seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council; the order was not implemented owing to their arrest on 26 June 2006; after their release in May-June 2010, they were immediately notified that they had to leave East Jerusalem; Mr. Abu-Teir was ordered to leave by 19 June 2010 and, refusing to do so, was arrested on 30 June 2010 and later deported to the West Bank; the other two parliamentarians were ordered to leave by 3 July 2010 and, likewise refusing to comply with the order, took refuge in the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) building in Jerusalem; according to the sources, on the morning of 26 September 2011, when Mr. Attoun was about to give an interview to Al-Quds television, four Israeli security forces officers dressed as lawyers entered the ICRC compound and violently arrested him; the reason he has been given for his arrest is his continued presence in Jerusalem despite the Ministerial Order for him to be deported; the Speaker of the Knesset, for his part, states in his letter of 4 January 2012: "Mr. Attoun was hiding illegally within the Red Cross complex in Jerusalem (and against the wishes of the organization). In cooperation with the Red Cross, Mr. Attoun was removed from the complex on 26 September";

Considering that, in response to a petition against the revocation of the residence permits and the deportation orders to the Supreme Court, on 23 October 2011 the Court asked the Government to respond within 30 days to the claim that the Minister of the Interior did not have legal authority to revoke a residence permit; recalling that the IPU trial observer, who was present at a hearing in the case on 26 July 2011, concluded that it fell short of certain basic principles of fairness; in his view, it was of particular concern that "in circumstances where the very basis of the petitioners’ challenge was the secret material that had been used to their great legal detriment, the Supreme Court made no attempt to disclose a redacted version of that material to the petitioners, or to enable them otherwise to understand and challenge the basis on which their legal rights were altered",

Considering that, according to the information provided by the sources, the Israeli authorities arrested Mr. Abdel Aziz Dweik, Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, on 19 January 2012 at a military checkpoint near Ramallah, in the West Bank, and that Mr. Dweik is in poor health and reportedly currently being held in Ofer prison under a six-month administrative detention order that runs until July 2012; considering also that, on 20 January 2012, another member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Mr. Khaled Tafish, was reportedly arrested at his home in a village east of Bethlehem and that on, 16 January 2012, the Israeli police reportedly arrested a further member, Mr. Abduljaber Al-Fuqahaa, in his home in Ramallah,

Considering, furthermore, that Mr. Ahmed Al-Haj Ali, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council who has been in administrative detention since 6 June 2011, is 72 years old and suffers from multiple diseases, started a hunger strike at the beginning of March 2012 to protest his continued administrative detention and that of fellow parliamentarians,

Bearing in mind, lastly, that, in its concluding observations on the third periodic report of Israel under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights¹, the Untied Nations Human Rights Committee recommended inter alia that all persons under Israel’s jurisdiction and effective control be afforded full enjoyment of the rights enshrined in the Covenant,

1. Thanks the Speaker of the Knesset for his communication and cooperation;

2. Is alarmed at the recent administrative detention of the Speaker and two members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, thus bringing the total number of Palestinian parliamentarians held in administrative detention to 23; deplores this situation, which not only prevents the parliamentarians concerned - close to a fifth of the Council’s total membership - from carrying out the mandate for which they were elected, but also greatly impairs the right of the Palestinian people to be represented by persons of their choice and, in the case of Mr. Dweik, constitutes an affront to the Council itself, whose authority the Speaker symbolizes;

3. Considers in this regard that the continued practice of administrative detention is bound to impede the proper functioning of the Palestinian Legislative Council, as its members can be arrested at any time and placed in administrative detention for as long as the Israeli military authorities wish;

4. Expresses serious misgivings in this respect about the ability of those held in administrative detention to benefit from due process, despite the rules pertaining thereto, Supreme Court case-law and any safeguards they contain to prevent the abusive use of administrative detention; 

5. Notes that any decision regarding administrative detention must be based on a "specific and concrete threat", documented through "current and reliable information", preceded by a process to "exhaust the possibility of utilizing alternative criminal procedures before resorting to administrative detention", and include "the right to appeal"; invites the Israeli authorities to provide further information on these aspects, in particular why it is no longer possible to have recourse to normal criminal procedures and what steps they have taken to ensure an effective and meaningful appeal process;

6. Calls on the Israeli authorities, therefore, to abandon this practice and either to release the members of the Palestinian Legislative Council being held in administrative detention forthwith or, should there be criminal involvement, to prosecute them in full accordance with normal criminal procedure;

7. Invites the Knesset to review the policy of administrative detention and consider adopting legislation providing for alternative measures in conformity with internationally accepted human rights norms and practices;

8. Is extremely concerned about Mr. Attoun’s conviction for being unlawfully present in Israel and the circumstances of the recent arrest of Mr. Totah and the fact that he is now being tried as well; recalls that, in keeping with Article 45 of the Hague Convention (IV) of October 1907, which is considered to enshrine rules of customary international law, the inhabitants of occupied territory, such as East Jerusalem, may not be compelled to swear allegiance to the occupying power; wishes to receive a copy of the response that the Israeli Government was due to submit to the Supreme Court by 23 November 2011 on the matter of the revocation of the residence permits;

9. Requests the Secretary General to forward this resolution to the Israeli authorities and the sources, inviting them to provide the requested information, and to communicate it to the ICRC;

10. Requests the Committee to continue examining this case and to report to it at its next session, to be held during the 127th IPU Assembly (October 2012).

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1. CCPR/C/ISR/CO/3

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