Forensic Architecture

Profile

Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
Websitehttps://forensic-architecture.org/
Founded2010
In their own words"develop, disseminate, and employ new techniques for evidence gathering and presentation in the service of human rights and environmental investigations and in support of communities exposed to state violence and persecution"

Funding

  • Donors include the European Union, Sigrid Rausing Trust, Open Society Foundation, and the Oak Foundation.
  • According to Forensic Architecture, “Forensic Architecture is supported by academic, human rights, technology, and arts grants. We also receive income from commissioned investigations, and from exhibitions. All income generated through these activities is used to support ongoing research.”
  • In 2016-2021, Forensic Architecture received €1,996,830 from the European Union to “provide novel types of architectural evidence in the context of a number of high profile IHL and HR investigations, in such places as Syria, Israel/Palestine and Amazonia/Brazi.”
  • In 2020-2022, Forensic Architecture received £450,000 from Sigrid Rausing Trust.
  • In 2018-2019, Forensic Architecture received $410,000 from Open Society Foundations.

Activities

  • Forensic Architecture is a pseudo-research project that consistently generates analyses that are inaccurate, misleading, and blatantly prejudiced.
  • In February 2021, Forensic Architecture, together with Al-Haq, alleged that Israeli forces acted unlawfully in shooting Ahmed Erekat when he rammed his car into a soldier at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Jerusalem in June 2020. The NGOs did not offer new or concrete evidence, and did not know and could not incorporate the assessments of the Israeli forces on the ground. (Read NGO Monitor’s report “EU-Funded, ICC-Linked Al-Haq and Forensic Architecture on the Ahmad Erekat Shooting.”)
  • In December 2020, Forensic Architecture signed a letter calling on the German Bundestag to revoke its joint resolution defining BDS campaigns against Israel as antisemitic.
  • In July 2018, Forensic Architecture participated in a conference with Zochrot discussing the “indigenous presence of the Palestinian Bedouins as permanent residents of this land along with tracing the cycles of depopulation and destruction carried out by the Israeli government.”
  • In September 2015, Forensic Architecture was “invited by the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court to deliver a closed presentation of its findings on the 2014 war in Gaza.”
  • In July 2015, alongside Amnesty International, Forensic Architecture launched an online “Gaza Platform,” to “map[] Israeli attacks in Gaza” during the 2014 Gaza conflict. The Platform repeats the baseless and distorted accusations of Al Mezan and Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), does not employ credible research methodology, and reflects Forensic Architecture’s and Amnesty’s lack of military and legal expertise.

Eyal Weizman

  • Weizman, director of Forensic Architecture, is formerly a board member of B’Tselem.
  • In February 2020, Eyal Weizman was denied entry into the United States after being classified as a “security threat” by Homeland Security.
  • Weizman has referred to himself as a “supporter of the BDS movement.”
  • In January 2021, Weizman was a signatory on a letter to the UK Secretary of State for Education calling to “reject the IHRA document,” referring to the definition as “inherently flawed.”
    • The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, adopted by nearly 30 countries and counting, represents the international consensus definition of antisemitism, as well as how to distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and antisemitism. An example of the latter includes denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
  • In July 2017, Weizman coined the term “vertical apartheid,” alleging that Israel’s “evolving vertical system of domination has in the past 15 years hardened into a geographically unique structure.”
  • In September 2014, Weizman falsely claimed in an interview with The Guardian that the tiled red roofs common to Jewish homes in the West Bank are actually “mandatory red roofs so that on flyovers the Israeli army know not to target them.” Following complaints, The Guardian amended the original article to remove this assertion.
  • In January 2009, Weizman signed a petition calling for the UN Security Council and the EU to impose sanctions on Israel.

Partners

  • According to its website, Forensic Architecture “are part of the Technology Advisory Board of the International Criminal Court (ICC).”
  • Forensic Architecture has partnered with Breaking the Silence.
    • Breaking the Silence makes sweeping accusations based on anecdotal, anonymous, and unverifiable accounts of often low-ranked soldiers. These “testimonies” lack context, are politically biased, and erase the complicated reality in the West Bank. In addition, they reflect a distorted interpretation of the conflict in order to advance the political agenda of Breaking the Silence activists, thereby fueling the international campaigns against Israel.

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Further Reading