Human Rights Lawyers not welcome in Israel
A rather astonishing saga played out last week at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. Kate Maynard is a solicitor at Hickman & Rose a London based law firm specialising in Criminal and Civil Law. Ms. Maynard travelled to Israel last Wednesday to fulfill an invitation to speak at an international legal conference organised by Avocats Sans Frontières (Lawyers Without Borders) a human rights NGO.
Upon arrival at Ben Gurion Airport Ms. Maynard was immediately detained and subjected to "intensive and intrusive" questioning by Shin Bet. She was detained overnight to await deportation back to The UK. Overnight Ms. Maynard instructed her Israeli lawyer Smadar Ben Nathan to petition the Tel Aviv district court to prevent her deportation and obtain her release from custody so she could speak at the conference and carry out her legitimate legal work for Palestinian clients.
At approximately 7.30am local time on 25 May, Judge Avraham Tal ordered the Israeli authorities to lift the prohibition on Ms Maynard’s entry to Israel, but directed that she be admitted to the country for a limited period of time, cutting her visit short by almost three days.
Under Israeli law deportation can only be justified if a person is a threat to the security of the state. Despite this, the judicial decision arbitrarily curtailed Ms Maynard’s visit and sought to prevent her from meeting Palestinian clients to provide them with up to date details about the progress of their international cases against Israeli war crimes.
As if this decision by the court to curtail Ms. Maynard's time in Israel wasn't perverse enough, Israeli immigration authorities decided that the judge’s ruling was merely a ‘recommendation’ and at about 5.30pm local time on 25 May, the Israeli immigration authorities decided not to follow the recommendation. No reason was provided for this approach, other than ‘security’ and Ms. Maynard was forced to return to The UK immediately.
Kate Maynard and Daniel Machover who is a partner at Hickman & Rose have worked closely with the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in building evidence of War Crimes carried out in the occupied territories. This work is vital in combating Israeli military impunity.
Ms. Maynard's colleague Daniel Machover spoke at the "Towards Peace and Justice in Palestine and Israel" conference which I attended in April. There, he outlined the case of Doran Almog, a retired IDF general whom Hickman & Rose pursued via Universal Jurisdiction law which compels any country that is a party to the Geneva Convention to spontaenously arrest any War Crimes suspect once he or she sets foot on its territory. Almog was due to fly to The UK last September to speak at an event at Solihull synagogue. The evidence Hickman & Rose helped gather against Almog was so compelling that Bow St. Magistrates Court issued an arrest warrant for Almog on specific charges which constituted War Crimes.
Unfortunately, the Israeli embassy in London got word of the arrest warrant and told Almog not to set foot off the plane, directly interfering with the execution of the arrest warrant. How and why the Israeli embassy offical was allowed through security to meet Almog airside at Heathrow is a matter of speculation. In any case, Almog's plane turned around with him on it and flew back to Israel, thus preventing his arrest by London Metropolitan Police.
In the aftermath of the Almog incident, Jack Straw, then Minister at the Home Office apologised to his Israeli counterpart over the attempted arrest of Almog, an arrest warranted by his own judiciary! The British government is also looking at weakening its own laws on Universal Jurisdiction under intense lobbying from Israel and The US.
Ms. Maynard's wrongful detention and deportation last week is the Israeli government's latest act in securing impunity for its military in carrying out grave breaches of International Law.
Hickman & Rose and The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights joint press release on last week's events is here.
tags:israel, palestine
Published by Paul.
Upon arrival at Ben Gurion Airport Ms. Maynard was immediately detained and subjected to "intensive and intrusive" questioning by Shin Bet. She was detained overnight to await deportation back to The UK. Overnight Ms. Maynard instructed her Israeli lawyer Smadar Ben Nathan to petition the Tel Aviv district court to prevent her deportation and obtain her release from custody so she could speak at the conference and carry out her legitimate legal work for Palestinian clients.
At approximately 7.30am local time on 25 May, Judge Avraham Tal ordered the Israeli authorities to lift the prohibition on Ms Maynard’s entry to Israel, but directed that she be admitted to the country for a limited period of time, cutting her visit short by almost three days.
Under Israeli law deportation can only be justified if a person is a threat to the security of the state. Despite this, the judicial decision arbitrarily curtailed Ms Maynard’s visit and sought to prevent her from meeting Palestinian clients to provide them with up to date details about the progress of their international cases against Israeli war crimes.
As if this decision by the court to curtail Ms. Maynard's time in Israel wasn't perverse enough, Israeli immigration authorities decided that the judge’s ruling was merely a ‘recommendation’ and at about 5.30pm local time on 25 May, the Israeli immigration authorities decided not to follow the recommendation. No reason was provided for this approach, other than ‘security’ and Ms. Maynard was forced to return to The UK immediately.
Kate Maynard and Daniel Machover who is a partner at Hickman & Rose have worked closely with the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in building evidence of War Crimes carried out in the occupied territories. This work is vital in combating Israeli military impunity.
Ms. Maynard's colleague Daniel Machover spoke at the "Towards Peace and Justice in Palestine and Israel" conference which I attended in April. There, he outlined the case of Doran Almog, a retired IDF general whom Hickman & Rose pursued via Universal Jurisdiction law which compels any country that is a party to the Geneva Convention to spontaenously arrest any War Crimes suspect once he or she sets foot on its territory. Almog was due to fly to The UK last September to speak at an event at Solihull synagogue. The evidence Hickman & Rose helped gather against Almog was so compelling that Bow St. Magistrates Court issued an arrest warrant for Almog on specific charges which constituted War Crimes.
Unfortunately, the Israeli embassy in London got word of the arrest warrant and told Almog not to set foot off the plane, directly interfering with the execution of the arrest warrant. How and why the Israeli embassy offical was allowed through security to meet Almog airside at Heathrow is a matter of speculation. In any case, Almog's plane turned around with him on it and flew back to Israel, thus preventing his arrest by London Metropolitan Police.
In the aftermath of the Almog incident, Jack Straw, then Minister at the Home Office apologised to his Israeli counterpart over the attempted arrest of Almog, an arrest warranted by his own judiciary! The British government is also looking at weakening its own laws on Universal Jurisdiction under intense lobbying from Israel and The US.
Ms. Maynard's wrongful detention and deportation last week is the Israeli government's latest act in securing impunity for its military in carrying out grave breaches of International Law.
Hickman & Rose and The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights joint press release on last week's events is here.
tags:israel, palestine
Published by Paul.
|