The “Lawyers for Justice” group
Annual Report 2021-2022
“Ongoing Crisis”
The Systematic Nature of the Suppression of Freedoms in the West Bank
The summary
The year 2021 marked a qualitative difference in the human rights situation in the West Bank; the pace of violations escalated dramatically, especially after the assassination of the political critic “Nizar Banat” by forces from the security agencies, the techniques used by the security agencies to suppress public rights and freedoms varied, reaching the highest levels of repression.
Lawyers for Justice followed up the deterioration of public rights and freedoms in the West Bank during the year, and the harassment, assault and repression that citizens were subjected to due to their practices of those rights.
Accordingly; This report deals with civil and political rights in international conventions compared to Palestinian national legislation, these include the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the right to peaceful assembly, the right to life, the right to physical and psychological integrity, the right to participate in political life, and the right to litigation and fair trial guarantees, it also reviews the reality of exercising those rights in the occupied West Bank.
The group monitored and documented all the cases it followed, in addition to the cases that had a great resonance and impact on the Palestinian street, including the trial sessions of the late “Banat” in the annual report for the second year since the declaration of the state of emergency, which covers the period from (March 2021) to (March 2022), where the number of cases of political arrests increased significantly, and all peaceful demonstrations and assemblies were suppressed, and the method of threats and extortion was used against demonstrators, both males and females, the report also dealt with the harassment and distortion that the group was subjected to, with the aim of hindering its work in protecting human rights, the report also highlighted the continuous targeting of activists and human rights defenders, whether in arrests or summonses by the security agencies.