National, regional, and international civil society organizations,* welcome today’s communication submitted to the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on behalf of 37-year-old, Palestinian-French Jerusalemite, long-time human rights defender, and colleague lawyer, Salah Hammouri, which details years of persecution and new tactics to forcibly transfer Palestinians from occupied Jerusalem. The Center for Constitutional Rights and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) submitted the communication on Mr. Hammouri’s behalf in the context of the OTP’s ongoing investigation into the Situation in the State of Palestine.
The communication, addressed to ICC prosecutor Karim A. A. Khan, sets out the prolonged persecution campaign perpetrated by the Israeli authorities targeting Mr. Hammouri since he was 15 years old, including intense harassment, repeated arbitrary detention, and the denial of his fundamental rights, including the right to family and family unity; freedom of movement; the freedom of association, assembly, expression and the right to protest; the right to pursue a livelihood; and the right to citizenship. The latest in this series of attacks was the revocation of his Jerusalem residency and placing him under administrative detention subject to indefinite renewals.
On 3 September 2020, Mr. Hammouri was notified of the Israeli Minister of Interior’s decision to revoke his permanent Jerusalem residency because of a “breach of allegiance” to the State of Israel, the Occupying Power, as stipulated under the amendment to the Entry into Israel Law. A year later, on 18 October 2021, his residency was indeed revoked, the basis of which is based on secret “information” undermining and fundamentally violating his right to due process and a fair trial. On 7 March 2022, about 25 Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF), arrested Mr. Hammouri from his apartment in Kufr Aqab north of Jerusalem. Two days later, he was placed under a three-month administrative detention on the basis of “secret information.”