Arab Association for Human Rights
December 6, 2006
Arab Association of Human Rights and the Centre against Racism hosted a joint press conference to launch their report dealing with the discriminatory policy of racial profiling against Arab Passengers by Israeli Airports and Airlines
On December 4, 2006, the Arab Association of Human Rights and Centre for Racism held a press conference for the release of their joint report titled 'Suspected Citizens: Racial Profiling against Arab Passengers by Israeli Airports and Airlines'. The press conference was held in Mary Wells Hotel, which was attended by members of the press from both the Arabic and Jewish newspapers and TV that included Al Jazeera, Channel 1 and 10. The press conference was held at 11 am to inform the Israeli public about the publication of their report, which deals with the human rights violations that is occurring to majority of Arab citizens in airports and by airlines. At the press conference, time was allocated for the press and the public to ask question to the researcher, authors and to those that had given testimony. The report shows that Palestinians Arabs are classified by the nature of the discriminatory policy by racial profiling that defines them as a security threat by the fact of being Arab.
The report details the manner in which discriminatory inspection is imposed on Arab citizens as a national group all of whose members are spuriously perceived as a “security threat” to the state, and exposes the true purpose of this inspection: To monitor Arab citizens under the guise of security needs as part of a systemic and deliberate policy on the part of the state authorities.
HRA acknowledges the fact that all states have a right to protect the security of passengers using air transport and the security of airplanes. Nevertheless, the effect of the State’s policies on the lives of the Palestinian Arabs cannot be seen other than in a negative light. Such a policy should be applied uniformly irrespective of his or her ethnic background. To target one individual or collective group and implement a policy, which has the affect of humiliating them and labeling them as a threat, is a complete disregard for the human rights of the individual and the collective group right without having an objective reason. For the state agencies, to target a segment of their population which are citizens of the state which they should protect, without justification and then claiming itself to be democratic is reprehensible in the modern age.
With the publication of this report, HRA calls on Israel and the various states to refrain from such actions in which such acts are clearly discriminatory by targeting the Palestinians Arabs. If such action is required for public security reason, such treatment should be applied individually without penalizing a group as a whole with no regard for individual responsibility. HRA calls on the Israel to review and examines the policy that it has undertaken and to modify it when it violates the human rights that are customary in nature and in the international and regional measures that they have agreed to abide by. It calls on the foreign airport and airlines to review their arrangement that these entities have with Israel, which allow human rights violations to be carried out under their name. If such action is required the report concludes, it should be based on a personal and specific suspicion, based on objective information. It should not be based on national ground and on a subjective suspicious, which the individual is targeted for what is he is, rather than anything than what s/he has done or will do. HRA calls for an end to this racist action and it hopes by this report to stimulate public debate about the existence of this discriminatory action and so that a positive change will occur which will align with the basic human rights that are inalienable and inherent all individual and groups.
Please find the report at:
http://www.arabhra.org/publications/reports/index.htm
For further information, please contact us directly:
Muhammad Zeidan Tarek Ibrahim, Adv.
Director Programme Director,
Email: mzeidan@arabhra.org Research and Reporting
Email: tarek@arabhra.org
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