He is one of the most illustrious victims of Israeli propaganda. A man who is paying the price for defamatory accusations circulated to discredit him. His name is Shawan Jabarin, he is 64 years old, was born in the West Bank. He is the president of the Non-Governmental Organization Al-Haq and is a member of the Human Rights Watch Advisory Committee for the Middle East and, since 2012, executive member of the ICJ-CH in Geneva (International Commission of Jurists).
Positions of the highest prestige which he has earned numerous international awardsnotably the 2024 University of Galway Alumni Award for Law, Public Policy and Society and the 2020 Gwynne Skinner Human Rights Award, the 2019 Human Rights and Business Award, the 2018 Human Rights Prize of the French Republic.
It does not appear at all coincidental that on 22 December 2021, when Shawan Jabarin was invited by the then President of the Chamber Laura Boldrini to be heard by the Human Rights Committee, a note from the Israeli embassy made known to all the media, denounces «the invitation of a terrorist to Montecitorio».
The choice to listen to him was not accidental. Al-Haq has been documenting for 40 years human rights violations committed by both Israeli and Palestinian forces in the occupied Palestinian territories. He has repeatedly denounced the repression by the Palestinian authorities of popular protests in the occupied territories and, even before that, in 2008 he asked the European Union to suspend funding for the Security Forces of the Palestinian Authority, due to inhuman and degrading treatments suffered by prisoners in Palestinian prisons.
Jabarin has long collaborated with the Prosecutor’s Office International Criminal Court. This is Karim Ahmad Khan, the magistrate who a few weeks ago called for the arrest of Israeli and Hamas leaders. A key role that made him end up at the center of what is called Netanyahu’s “secret war” against the International Criminal Court.
In 2021, after the controversy sparked by the hearing in the Chamber of Deputies, Boldrini clarified that Jabarin, arrested several times by the Israelis «is recognized as an esteemed human rights activist by organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, lives freely in Ramallah and travels to hold meetings of an institutional nature in various European capitals.
If he were convicted of terrorism in Israel he would certainly not enjoy this freedom” and recalled how “the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, defined this accusation as a violation of freedoms of association, opinion, expression and active participation in public life”. Statements confirmed by an investigation by the British newspaper The Guardianin collaboration with an Israeli-Palestinian publication, +972 Magazineand with Local Call, a Hebrew-language newspaper. According to the report, «when the International Criminal Court launched a full investigation into the Palestine case, Defense Minister Benny Gantz designated Al-Haq and five other NGOs collaborating on the Palestine dossier as “terrorist organizations,” for the sole purpose of discrediting their work and that of the Court”. And in this context the embassy note was issued. A design now revealed and perfectly clear.
