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Al-Marsad statement on the recent silencing calls, by the occupation security services, for activists from the Golan

May 30, 2021

Multiple expressions of solidarity with the victims of human rights violations against Palestinians in the occupied territories and within the Green Line spread widely, in conjunction with the recent events in the occupied Palestinian territories, in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the rest of the Palestinian areas. These expressions of solidarity are varied, starting with individual solidarity through social media, to the sit-downs and demonstrations in dozens of towns and cities in the region and worldwide.

In addition to the individual solidarity (which hundreds of Syrians from the occupied Golan expressed on their private pages), Majdal Shams witnessed a peaceful stand in solidarity with the Palestinian victims who are exposed to excessive violence. Most of the participants were among the youth. This was followed by increased involvement from a number of Syrians in the Golan—calling for a general strike that included all the Palestinian areas, on May 18, 2021.

During the past two weeks, some activists from the Golan Heights were summoned by the Israeli security forces. In two of the reported cases, the summonses were accompanied by “show-offs” designed to spread fear and intimidation among the local population.

Al-Marsad’s lawyer had accompanied one of these summonses of the young woman, Khawla Ibrahim, an actress, director, and activist. During this summon three police cars were brought to her father’s pharmacy. He was asked to direct her from home to the pharmacy and proceed to take her to the police station in Katzrin settlement. Khawla Ibrahim did not receive any prior invitation, not even a phone call. The police did not present any accusatory evidence other than hinting and warning against her political activity, which falls under the right to expression. At the same meeting, two other activists were present with her, who were summoned for raising the Palestinian flag during the solidarity stand.

The second summons was for the young man N.W - a university student and activist - who told Al-Marsad that he received a call from the police asking him to come to their headquarters in the city of Karmiel. It became clear, as N.W. concludes, through the conversation and questions directed to him by the intelligence officer, that the purpose of the summons was a mixture of warning and reconnaissance; an attempt to dissuade him from his political activity and entice him to deal with the occupation security services.

Regarding the third case, it is clear from the information received by Al-Marsad from multiple sources (as the young woman was not interviewed directly) that one of the teachers was detained in the workplace. After storming her classroom in a school in the Golan, she was apprehended in front of her students and fellow teaching staff during official working hours and without prior notification, and was then escorted to the police station.

In this case, it appears that the main reason behind this “simulated detention” was that she had published a “story” on her Instagram page expressing her solidarity with the victims of the recent events in Jerusalem.

It is possible that other summonses, about which we do not know, have taken place. Commonalities with the above cases include firstly, that they were not based on any legal basis. Secondly, they were made (in at least two cases) in a show-like manner that simulates the official arrest, and accompanied by exaggerated manifestations of force. Thirdly, it included indirect threats, intimidation, and the blackmailing of activists, threatening their livelihoods and their professional futures, to silence them and dissuade them from their legitimate activity and their basic right to express opinion. Finally, there is a parallel that the targeted persons are mostly young activists with critical voices of the programs and the projects through which the local authorities seek to advance the integration policies. These integration policies aim to reshape the identity of the Syrians in the Golan to serve the interests of the occupying power, such as the “Combat arms exhibition” that was organized for the first time on the lands between the Syrian villages, despite the sweeping popular rejection of this project.

These pressures and attempts to intimidate and silence accompany the same policy that recently targeted a group of activists (along with Al-Marsad) who expressed their objection to the disastrous “Windfarm project”, through SLAP lawsuits. As well as during the objection that was recorded by activists and the vast majority of the civil society, during the imposition of local council elections on the villages of the Golan, in late 2018, and the following violations and excessive violence that accompanied this process against the local population.

As Al-Marsad condemns the practices of pressure on the Syrians of the Golan and the restrictions on their basic right to express opinion and practice peaceful civil activity. It calls on the occupation government and its various security services, to desist from the policy of direct and indirect threats with the aim of censorship and to stop violating their basic rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

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