Activities

• Addameer is a leader of campaigns in support of Palestinians prisoners convicted of security offenses, referring to them as “political prisoners” and altogether omitting the context of violence and terror.
• Refers to the Israeli army as the “Israeli Occupying Forces,” and accuses Israel of “collective punishment,” “war crimes,” and a “policy of using Palestinian prisoners as pawns to achieve political and military gains.”
• Accuses Israel of “committing nothing short of a modern-day ethnic cleansing before our eyes; in the continuing quest for full annexation of Palestinian land and the expansion of Israel’s colonial frontier. The time is more urgent than ever for the international community to hold Israel accountable for its recurring and blatant war crimes against Palestinians.”
• On September 26, 2017, General Director Sahar Francis spoke at the European Parliament in Brussels at an event titled “The Role of Women in the Palestinian Popular Struggle.” The event featured Leila Khaled whose affiliation was listed as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and was organized by Unadikum, an NGO that participated in a gala to raise funds for the Union of Health Workers Committee (UHWC), a PFLP-affiliated group in Gaza.
• On April 17, 2017, Addameer, as a member of the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC), released a statement on Palestinian Prisoners’ Day stating that “This year marks 50 years of torture of Palestinian political prisoners through a military system which has historically been endemic and various forms of physical and psychological torture and ill-treatment,” and calling on the International Criminal Court to “open an investigation into the case of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, and bring those who have tortured, extrajudicially executed, forcibly transferred, and arbitrary (sic) detained Palestinians to be held to accountable.”
• On February 8, 2017, Addameer released a report accusing Israel of economically exploiting Palestinian “political prisoners,” claiming that this comes as “part of Israel’s sophisticated system of control put in place in order to break apart Palestinian resistance.” The statement further claims that “the integration of the PA into the Israeli prison system” has “made Palestinian society responsible for facilitating the imprisonment of those who resist the occupation and colonization of Palestinian land.” The report alleges that Israel attempts “to neutralize prisoners identified as political threats by forcing them to dedicate their energies to struggling for basic material needs, rather than to the kind of struggles for which they were originally imprisoned” (emphases added).
• In November 2016, in a meeting with the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Palestine (held in conjunction with Defense for Children International –DCI-P), General Director Sahar Francis demonized Israel and accused the State of “torture and corporal punishment.”
• On July 27, 2016, Addameer called on the “international community to urge Israel…to end the harsh, inhuman and degrading practices that pressure hunger strikers to end their strikes, and to review the continuous and systematic human rights violations of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, especially in regards to the policy of administrative detention.”
• On July 20, 2016, Addameer released a report sponsored by Heinrich Boll Stiftung accusing “Israeli occupation forces (IOF)” of “intensif[ying] human rights violations against Palestinians in East Jerusalem.”
• Responding to a wave of terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians in 2015, Addameer held “Israeli occupation authorities responsible for the…escalation,” and accused Israel of “oppression and collective punishment against Palestinians.” Reports erased the context of “alleged stabbings” and terrorism, as well as Israel’s right to defend its citizens, in describing steps taken by Israeli security forces as “human rights violations against Palestinians.”
• Between 2013-2015, Addameer participated in the campaign “Love Under Apartheid,” which alleges that the “Israeli apartheid system affects individuals by restricting a deeply personal right: their right to love.”

PFLP Ties

• Addameer is a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) “affiliate.” The PFLP is a terrorist organization designated as such by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel.
• Addameer’s chairperson and co-founder, Abdul-latif Ghaith, was banned by Israel from travelling internationally due to his alleged membership in the PFLP. He was also banned from entering the West Bank in 2011-2015.
• Khalida Jarrar, Addameer’s former vice-chairperson, is a senior PFLP official. Jarrar was administratively detained on April 1, 2015 by Israeli security forces. On April 15, 2015 she was indicted for various offenses including active membership in a terrorist organization (the PFLP) and inciting violence through a call to kidnap Israeli soldiers to be used as “bargaining chips for the release of Palestinian prisoners.” Jarrar accepted a plea bargain and was reportedly convicted on “one count of belonging to an illegal organization and another of incitement” receiving a 15-month prison sentence with an additional 10-month suspended sentence. She was released from prison on June 3, 2016. According to Addameer, Jarrar was re-arrested in July 2017 for six months. In December 2017, the detention was extended by another six months to July 2018.
• In August 2017, Addameer petitioned the President of France for the release of its field researcher Salah Hamouri who was arrested on August 23, 2017. Hamouri was previously arrested in 2005 for “attempting to assassinate Ovadia Yosef…and for his involvement with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.”
• Yousef Habash, the public relations officer of the Union of Health Work Committees, serves as an Addameer board member, and is apparently the nephew of PFLP founder George Habbash. Israel prevented Habash from leaving the West Bank in 2011-2012. He is also a member of the BDS National Committee.
• Ayman Nasser, an Addameer researcher, was arrested on October 15, 2012 for links to the PFLP. An indictment was filed attributing a number of offenses relating to membership in the PFLP and activities on behalf of the organization. On June 3, 2013 the Judea Military Court convicted Nasser, who admitted to being a member of an unlawful organization, the PFLP, and for providing services to the organization.
• Sumoud Saadat, an Addameer staffer, is the daughter of PFLP general secretary Ahmad Saadat who is serving a 30 year prison sentence in Israel due to his terrorist activity.
• Suha Al Bargouti, Addameer’s treasurer, is the wife of reported PFLP member Ahmed Qatamesh.
• Anas Barghouti, a lawyer for Addameer in 2009-2013, was arrested in September 2013 for “membership of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine” and “leadership of a committee to organize demonstrations.” In February 2017, Barghouti  accepted a plea deal that included “a 7,000-shekel ($1,892) fine, as well as a suspended sentence of 18 months in prison if Barghouthi is found to be involved with PFLP in the coming five years.”
• According to Amnesty International, “Five staff members from the organization [Addameer] are banned from travelling outside Israel and Palestine.”

BDS Activities

• In April 2017, on Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, Addameer urged “supporters of justice around the world to take action to support the Palestinian prisoners whose bodies and lives are on the line for freedom and dignity” by “join[ing a] BDS Campaign” and “Organiz[ing] an action at HP office in your city to highlight the role of corporations involved in – and profiting from – the political imprisonment of Palestinians by the Israeli occupation.”
• In February 2017, as a member of the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC), released a statement calling upon “the international community to abide by their international obligations” and “act immediately by imposing sanctions against Israel,” as a result of the passing of the “Regularization Law,” which is “another brazen tool for Israel to confiscate privately held and registered Palestinian property for its illegal settlement enterprise.”
• In August 2016, submitted a joint complaint to the UN Special Rapporteur concerning review of the residency status of Omar Barghouti, a prominent proponent of BDS. The statement falsely describes BDS as “peacefully pursu[ing] a human rights agenda based on an international law framework”; in fact, BDS are tactics of political warfare, based on the exploitation of human rights double standards, comparisons to apartheid South Africa, and false accusations of “war crimes.”
• In February 2016, issued a joint statement that “For decades, Israel has failed to uphold its duties as Occupying Power and has instead deepened its occupation and regime of colonialism and apartheid” and “affirm[ed] the right of all individuals to participate in and advocate for boycott, divestment, and sanction actions, and calls on states and businesses to uphold their related legal responsibilities” and stated that the EU November 2015 labeling move against Israeli settlement products is “insufficient,” calling for a complete ban (emphasis added).
• In February 2016, General Director Sahar Francis was a guest speaker at the opening plenary session of Israeli Apartheid Week in London titled “Confronting Apartheid at Home and Abroad: Palestine in a Global Context.”
  • The plenary was sponsored by War on Want.
• Together with Al-Mezan, Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), Badil, and Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution (PCDCR), Addameer signed on a “Joint Call to Action: July 2014 – Month against the Apartheid Wall,” stating: “….it is time for a ‘legal intifada’, an intensified popular struggle and more boycotts, divestment and sanctions. It is time for accountability…. to overcome Israeli apartheid, colonialism and occupation. We ask you to expand and deepen the global BDS movement for justice…”
• In April 2015 sent a joint letter to the UN Secretary General urging the UN to divest from the British security company G4S as a result of its servicing detention centers known for “widespread torture and mistreatment of Palestinian political prisoners, including children.” An accompanying report alleged that G4S’s activities “represent a clear facilitation and continuation of war crimes against Palestinian prisoners.” According to General Director Sahar Francis, “At a time when Israel is stepping up its campaign of mass incarceration as a way of repressing Palestinian society, G4S should immediately end its role in the notorious Israeli prison system, as well as its involvement in securing Israeli checkpoints and illegal settlements.”

UN Activities

• Lobbies the UN “to ask them to intervene to hold Israel accountable and pressure it to change its policies and practices.”
• On March 17, 2017, Addameer, BADIL, Al-Haq, and Society of St. Yves held a side event at the 34th session of the UN Human Rights Council on “Collective Punishment in Jerusalem” discussing “Israel’s collective punishment measures targeting the protected Palestinian population in Occupied East Jerusalem.”
• In November 2016, Addameer co-authored a submission to Michael Lynk, UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in the Palestinian Territories, on “Human Rights Defenders in the OPT…highlight[ing] the repressive environment within which human rights defenders (HRDs) work in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” The submission referred to Manal Tamimi, a fieldworker for the Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling (WCLAC) as a “human rights defender.”
  • Tamimi frequently utilizes antisemitic and violent rhetoric and imagery on social media. In August 2015, Tamimi tweeted, “I do hate Israel, i (sic) wish a thrid Intefada (sic) coming soon and people rais (sic) up and kills all these zionist settlers everywhere.”
• On May 2-4, 2016, Addameer delivered a statement at the 57th session of the Committee Against Torture“ pertaining to the use of administrative detention as a policy practiced by Israeli forces in which Palestinians are held indefinitely with no charge or trial….as a form of psychological torture.”
• In February 2015, Addameer sent a joint letter to the UN Secretary General urging him to “list Israel’s armed forced in the annex” of the “Annual Report on Children and Armed Conflict for committing grave violations against children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” (emphasis added).
• General Director Sahar Francis lobbied a roundtable meeting of the “Committee on the Exercise of the Unalienable Rights of the Palestinian People” in Geneva on April 24, 2014. The roundtable focused on “UN procedures and mechanisms to address the issue of political prisoners” and “International courts and options for the case of Palestinian prisoners and detainees.”
• In 2009, provided testimony before the Goldstone commission, alleging Israeli “violations of international law” and “racist Israeli policies” and falsely accusing Israel of using Palestinian detainees as “human shields.”