Israel deports HRW chief
HUMAN RIGHTS Watch’s IsraelPalestine director Omar Shakir was deported this week over a law that bans promoting anti-Israel boycotts.
The organisation said that Mr Shakir would keep his job and operate from a nearby country, most likely Jordan.
He on Monday, a year and a half after deportation proceedings began, becoming the first representative of an human rights body to be expelled from the country under the law.
Mr Shakir said: “This has never been about BDS. It’s always been about the Israeli government’s efforts to muzzle Human Rights Watch.
“But it’s had exactly the opposite effect. The world has seen through this for what it is. It’s an attack on the human rights movement.”
Israel’s Supreme Court had recently upheld a government decision not to renew Mr Shakir’s work visa and rejected a request to suspend his expulsion until a later hearing took place.
Human Rights Watch said the decision “won’t stop us investigating and reporting human rights abuses there.”
A government document making the recommendation obtained by
Haaretz said that Mr Shakir “continued encouraging activities to promote boycotts against Israel even after obtaining a work visa.”
It also noted his efforts to get Israel suspended from world football’s governing body FIFA and his “consistent calls for BDS at conferences, meetings and on social media over the years.”
Mr Shakir’s attorneys had argued the move would “harm the ability of human rights organisations and human rights defenders to do their work in Israel and the occupied territories in connection with the IsraeliPalestinian conflict.”