Published: 12 September 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
DOZENS OF RIGHTS GROUPS have filed a complaint with a UN expert panel over the five-month detention in Gaza of a Palestinian activist who organized a video conference with left-leaning campaigners in Israel.
The coalition of 70 NGOs said they had lodged a complaint with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to demand the release of peace campaigner Rami Aman, detained by Hamas in Gaza on April 9.
The Islamist terror group, which bans all communications with Israel, arrested six members of the Gaza Youth Committee, including Aman, the group’s founder, after they spoke to dozens of Israeli activists online.
They accused them of “treason” and “normalization” of relations with the Jewish state after the call, made via video conference service Zoom.
The call, part of a series of discussions dubbed “Skype with your enemy,” saw participants discuss their daily lives and expressed hopes for better leadership for both Israelis and Palestinians.
“Hamas’s arbitrary and unlawful arrest and detention of Mr. Aman for the crime of ‘normalization’ is part of a pattern of repression and intimidation against dissidents who dare to speak out against the authoritarian regime,” Hillel Neuer, who heads one of the signatory groups, UN Watch, said in a statement.
FULL STORY Case filed at UN against Hamas after activist detained for speaking to Israelis (Times of Israel)
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Photo: Rami Aman, founder of the Gaza Youth Committee, with the Dalai Lama (Twitter)
