CASE No - Inter-Parliamentary Union

- 2 - CL/183/SR.1
ANNEX XXIX
- on 30 June 2006, the Israeli Interior Minister revoked the East Jerusalem residence permits of
Mr. Muhammad Abu-Teir, Mr. Ahmad Attoun and Mr. Muhammad Totah and Mr. Khaled
Abu Arafeh, who is also Palestinian Minister of Jerusalem Affairs, on account of "breach of
trust" or owing to membership in a foreign parliament; they lodged an appeal against that
decision in the Israeli Supreme Court;
- the arrests and withdrawal of residence permits came in the context of Israeli military
operations in the Gaza Strip to obtain the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier kidnapped
on 25 June 2006 in a cross-border attack on Israeli military installations that the Israeli
Government blames on Hamas and the Palestinian Authority;
- Mr. Abderrahman Zaidan, who had been released, was rearrested approximately one month
after he had testified to the Committee at the session it held during the 116 th IPU Assembly
(Nusa Dua, Bali, May 2007),
Considering that, in the case of Mr. Wael Mohamed Abdel Ruman, the court accepted the
defence argument that not every candidate of the Change and Reform list was a member of Hamas and
therefore acquitted him of the charge of membership of a terrorist organization, but found him guilty on
account of having accepted a senior position in and carried out activities on behalf of an organization which
he knew to be a terrorist organization, sentencing him to 23 months in prison, 12 months’ suspended
imprisonment and a fine; that, however, the appeal court accepted the prosecution’s arguments and found
Mr. Wael guilty of membership of Hamas and increased the sentence to five years’ imprisonment of which
one and half years are suspended,
Considering that on 17 September 2008 the Supreme Court, ruling on the petition of
Mr. Muhammad Abu-Teir, Mr. Ahmad Attoun, Mr. Muhammad Totah and Mr. Khaled Abu Arafeh against
the revocation of their East Jerusalem permanent residency status, decided to give them the opportunity to
submit applications to the Israeli Minister of the Interior to reinstate their residency status and that doing so
would not be considered to be a retraction of their principal arguments, and asked the two parties to inform
it of developments that occurred in the case within 60 days, after which it would decide how to proceed
with the case,
Recalling that, at the meeting that the IPU President and the Secretary General had with the
Israeli Minister for Foreign Affairs during their visit to Israel in early February 2008, she stated that there was
no reason why information on the judicial proceedings in this and other cases of Palestinian Legislative
Council members should not be provided and undertook to ensure that such information was provided;
considering in this respect that, in his letter of 8 October, the Permanent Representative stated that
"Palestinian parliamentarians detained in Israel for their connection to terrorist activities continue to enjoy
rights stipulated under Israeli law with due respect paid to humanitarian concerns" and noted that "this is in
stark contrast to the depraved conditions of detention that the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit endures under the
Palestinian authorities. He continues to be denied even the most basic humanitarian assurances, including
visits by the ICRC",
Bearing in mind the prisoner exchange between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah
which took place on 16 July 2008, a move which the United Nations Secretary-General welcomed,
expressing the hope that it might soon be followed by action for the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit and
of Palestinian prisoners,
1. Thanks the Permanent Representative of Israel for his letter of 8 October 2008; nevertheless
regrets that it provides information neither on the conditions of detention and state of health
of the parliamentarians concerned nor on the proceedings under way against them; regrets in
particular the absence of any information on the situation of Mr. Abderrahamn Zaidan, who
was rearrested shortly after testifying to the Committee on the Human Rights of
Parliamentarians;