A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

DWRC Newswire

Israeli Soldiers Kill 10-year-old Boy in Ni'lin

July 29, 2008, Ni’lin, West Bank: A 10-year-old was killed by Israeli forces on Tuesday evening during a demonstration in the village of Ni'lin, west of Ramallah.
 
Eyewitnesses reported that the child, Ahmad Husam Yousef Musa, was shot in the head and died immediately. His body was transferred to Ramallah hospital.

The shooting occurred as bulldozers were finishing their daily work on a separation wall being built to protect an Israeli settlement. According to news reports, Israeli troops fired live ammunition directly at demonstrators who had gathered at the construction site.

Israeli forces have cracked down on Ni’lin ever since residents there began protesting what they call the “apartheid wall” – a barrier of razor-wire fences and concrete barricades that cuts into their land and has been deemed illegal by the World Court.  

Advocacy Project (AP) Peace Fellow Willow Heske is volunteering with the Democracy and Workers’ Rights Center (DWRC) in Ramallah this summer. Her tasks include following the negative effects of the separation barrier on workers from Ni’lin. The DWRC, an AP partner, advocates for the rights of Palestinian workers and promotes principles of democracy and social justice in the Occupied Territories.

Read the full article.

Read Willow’s blog.
Advocates Demand Justice for Palestinian Shot with Rubber Bullet

July 24, 2008, Ni’lin, West Bank: Human rights advocates in the Occupied Territories are calling for a investigation after video footage (above) surfaced of an Israeli soldier shooting a handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian at close range with a rubber bullet.

The incident occurred July 7 in Ni’lin, a village in the West Bank where residents have protested against the construction of a separation barrier to protect Israeli settlements. The Palestinian, Ashraf Abu-Rahma, 27, was stopped by soldiers, who cuffed and blindfolded him for about 30 minutes. Abu-Rahma said the soldiers beat him and then led him to an army Jeep, where the battalion commander held his arm and another soldier shot him in the foot. The rubber-coated steel bullet hit his left toe, he received treatment from an army medic, and was then released by the soldiers.

The video was filmed by a young girl who witnessed the shooting from her home in Ni’lin. Until the video appeared, the Military Police had not conducted an investigation or taken any measures against the soldier or the battalion commander. Residents of Ni’lin stated that, the day after the incident, they saw the soldier still serving in his unit.

Now, according to media reports, the Military Police have opened an investigation and arrested the soldier who fired the shot. The Ni’lin Popular Committee Against the Illegal Apartheid Wall has started an online petition calling for full prosecution and justice for the human rights abuses committed in Ni’lin. 

Israeli soldiers have cracked down on the village ever since residents there began protesting what they call the “apartheid wall” – a barrier of razor-wire fences and concrete barricades that cuts into their land and has been deemed illegal by the World Court.  

Willow Heske, an Advocacy Project (AP) Peace Fellow volunteering with the Democracy and Workers’ Rights Center (DWRC) in Ramallah this summer, created a presentation on the wall’s negative effects on the workers of Ni’lin. The DWRC, an AP partner, advocates for the rights of Palestinian workers and promotes principles of democracy and social justice in the Occupied Territories.

• Read Willow’s blog.
• Sign the petition.

Palestinians face food shortages because of Israeli occupation
June 16, 2008

Ramallah: The Democracy Workers Rights Center (DWRC) in Palestine sent an open letter in early June  to a world food security conference in Rome, drawing attention to food shortages in the country as a result of the Israeli occupation.

Dr. Hamdi Khawaja, Research Coordinator at DWRC, sent the letter to the organizers of the High-Level Conference on “World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy,” as well as United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and heads of state who attended the conference. The conference was held June 2-5.

Gaza, where borders are closed, faces one of the most severe food crises. Gaza is home to 1.5 million people, 700,000 of whom are already dependent on UN food relief. According to UN calculations, food relief still needs to reach an additional 302,000 people.

In addition, Israeli restrictions on oil imports have seriously impacted  food distribution efforts. According to Angela Kane, Assistant Secretary General of the UN, there have been no deliveries of petrol or diesel  to Gaza since April 2, 2008.

Over the past ten years, Palestinians have seen a 10 percent reduction in their agricultural land due to Israeli policies encouraging Jewish settlement and the building of military bases on Palestinian territory, the DWRC asserts. Israel also controls water reservoirs that Palestinian farmers depend on, and access to local and international markets is compromised by Israeli checkpoints, according to the  letter.

DWRC is a partner of The Advocacy Project. Peace Fellow Willow Heske is working with them this summer in Ramallah.

Read the open letter.


A Million Palestinians Take a Stand Against Poverty
October 29, 2007

Washington, DC and the Palestinian territories: Nearly a million Palestinians mobilized against poverty in the West Bank and Gaza on October 17 to mark the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

As the coordinator of the Palestinian Global Call to Action Against Poverty in Palestine (GCAP Palestine), the Democracy and Workers' Rights Center organized the protests. It also issued an open letter to the Palestinian Authority calling for sweeping reforms in the Palestinian tax and insurance policies, and an end to the Israeli occupation.