Take one minute, and write to Canadian Head of Mission in Ramallah, Robin Wettlaufer

Urge her to visit human rights defender and lawyer Salah Hammouri in Ofer prison, and to pressure Israeli authorities for Salah Hammouri’s immediate and unconditional release.

A letter in this regard has been sent by more than 30 civil society organizations from Canada, Palestine and elsewhere, and more than 100 lawyers, academics, faith leaders and others, most from Canada. Signatories include former UN rapporteur Richard Falk, academic Noam Chomsky, and author Yann Martel. You are asked to join in by sending your own letter.

Background

On June 6, 2022—the morning of his expected release from Ofer prison—Salah Hammouri learned about his three-month administrative detention renewal order through media channels available at his cell. The Israeli occupation authorities had a renewal order issued by June 2, 2022, however, chose to conceal that information from Salah and his legal counsel, to then only inform his legal counsel hours before the release date. On June 9, 2022, Ofer military court confirmed the renewal order for an additional three months to end on September 5, 2022. Salah's administrative detention, without charge or trial, is based on "secret information" and is still subject to indefinite renewals.

Already hundreds of letters have been sent to the Canadian government asking Canada to pressure Israeli authorities for Salah Hammouri’s immediate and unconditional release, the continuation of his Jerusalem residency status, and to demand that he is allowed to continue with his human rights work without fear of reprisals. Just Peace Advocates has asked Wettlaufer and her office several times to visit Salah Hammouri in prison following June 6, 2022, but we have not heard back.

The current arbitrary arrest and detention of Salah Hammouri are made more urgent and exceptional in light of the Israeli Minister of Interior’s unlawful decision, on October 18, 2021, to revoke his permanent residency status in Jerusalem under the vague and illegal criterion of “breach of allegiance” to the state of Israel. The initiation of his punitive residency revocation under Amendment No. 30 to the Entry into Israel Law of 1952, unlawfully applied to Jerusalem, an occupied territory, entails profound violations of international law. It also puts him at imminent risk of forcible transfer and deportation, a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, as well as the crimes against humanity of persecution, apartheid, and deportation.

Salah Hammouri’s case illustrates the Israeli authorities’ apartheid regime, including the widespread and systematic practice of illegal deportation and demographic manipulation, as manifested through its laws, policies, and practices, to maintain an institutionalized regime of domination and oppression over the Palestinian people as a whole. It is part of a larger attack on Palestinians living in occupied Palestine, and Palestinian residents of Jerusalem in particular, including with regard to Israel’s policy of forcible transfer and persecution, whether through residency revocation – under so-called “breach of allegiance” to the State of Israel or by failing to prove that Jerusalem is their “centre of life” – forced evictions, home demolitions, denial of building permits or other facets of Israel’s coercive environment imposed on the Palestinian people to drive them out of Jerusalem, and Palestine at large.

Read the full letter that has been sent.

Learn more HERE.

#JusticeforSalah