Palestinian
human rights activist Sha'wan Jabarin continues his work despite obstacles
by Shravanti Reddy*1, Digital Freedom Network* 2
(March 27, 2003) "Anyone who believes
in the big values such as justice, democracy, human rights and equality, they
know it is not easy," human rights activist Sha'wan Jabarin explained.
"You can't reach these goals in an easy way or in a short time, but you
must continue to try."
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When Sha'wan Jabarin heard of an open
position at Al-Haq, the Palestinian-based human rights organization, he applied
immediately, leaving his job as a journalist to become a field worker for the
organization in 1987. He has worked there ever since, despite offers from other
organizations with higher salaries and better perks.
Al-Haq, a Ramallah-based affiliate of the
International Commission of Jurists, was founded in 1979 and is the first human
rights organization established in the Middle East. The goal of Al-Haq is to
increase respect for human rights and the rule of law by documenting human
rights violations occurring in the West Bank and Jerusalem. They also seek to
educate the public on human rights issues and international human rights and
humanitarian law and produce human rights-related reports.
The last 16 years have not been easy for
Jabarin. His entry into human rights work coincided with the advent of the
first Intifada, the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation that lasted
from 1987 to 1993. Al-Haq's human rights work expanded and became more intense
with the increase in human rights violations such as killings, demolition of
houses, land confiscation, and torture.
In 1988, Jabarin's own human rights were
violated when he was arrested and administratively detained for the first time
by the Israeli authorities.
"The Israelis did not claim that they
arrested you because you were a human rights activist," he explained.
"They used other reasons such as suspicion of terrorism." Since 1987,
thousands of Palestinians have been subject to administrative detention, a
procedure in which detainees are held without official charges or a trial. Some
detainees, including scholars, lawyers and human rights activists, have spent
months and even years in prison under this policy.
"I have faced many difficulties,"
Jabarin said. While he has lost track of the number of times that he has been
arrested and detained over the years, Jabarin estimated that he has spent a
cumulative eight years in administrative detention and was beaten on numerous
occasions.
Yet, detention did little to deter him.
Despite the risks, he continued working in secret and provided important
information on human rights violations occurring within the prison to the
outside world.
Jabarin explained that Al-Haq's work has
always been done professionally and without a political agenda. Following the
Oslo agreement in 1993, Al-Haq became committed to documenting violations
committed by both the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government. "We
are like a bird with two wings," exclaimed Jabarin. "One to the
Israeli side and one to the Palestinian side."
Although the continuing violence does not
bode well for a resolution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict any time soon,
Jabarin continues to persevere in his human rights work because he has hope in
the future.
In 1990, Jabarin was awarded the prestigious
Reebok Human Rights Award. The award recognizes young activists who have made
significant contributions to human rights causes through nonviolent means. He
was also selected in 2001 to participate in the Human Rights Advocates program
at the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University. He is
currently a human rights officer at Al-Haq.
Walls are no obstacles
With no charges against him, no official
trial, and unable to communicate with his family or lawyers, Jabarin did not
let the prison walls keep him from his human rights work. Instead, he took
advantage of his insider status to document and report on human rights
violations within prison and educate fellow detainees about human rights and
the work of Al-Haq.
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With communication restricted, he used
secret ways to smuggle messages to colleagues and loved ones. He describes how
he spent hours, usually during the night, trying to fit as many as fifteen
pages of writing onto one single page. The letter would then be folded and
placed inside a small capsule that was covered in nylon and smuggled out of the
prison.
In this way, he was able to smuggle out
important information and communicate with his family. "I still have
samples of the capsules and my wife kept all my letters from prison," he
remarked. "You can hardly read them the writing is so small."
Some of his letters made it into the
newspapers, helping people to understand the conditions of administrative
detention. He was also able to inform people about the detention of members of
the Lebanese guerilla group, Hezbollah, in Israeli prisons. "I was shocked
to hear their story," Jabarin commented. "My smuggled letter was the
first time that Al-Haq and Amnesty International had learned of this
situation."
He also provided key information concerning
an incident involving the shooting of two prisoners and the injury of many
others in the prison. "Michael Posner of the Lawyers Committee for Human
Rights came to document the situation and I gave him accurate
information," Jabarin said.
Arrested and detained in 1988 and then again
in 1990 for one full year, Jabarin became a paralegal for Al-Haq upon his
release. His work in providing legal services to victims was continuously
interrupted by arrest and detention starting in 1994. Detained for a few months
at a time, the Israeli authorities would release him, only to arrest him again
shortly afterwards. He was working as a coordinator of field workers at Al-Haq
in 1996 when he was arrested and detained for two years.
Needless to say, he could not get much work
done. "It was very frustrating," said Jabarin when describing this
time.
The impact of a collective punishment
"It's easier to go to China then to go
to another place in the West Bank," Jabarin noted.
With the commencement of the second Intifada
in September 2000 and the Israeli seige, human rights violations doubled and
even tripled the levels seen during the first Intifada. While many of the same
types of violations are still occurring, Jabarin clarified that a new form of
collective punishment of the Palestinian people has emerged.
Freedom of movement within the Palestinian
territories has been strictly curtailed by the Israeli government as part of
their effort to crack down on terrorism. A special permit to leave a city or
village is required of all Palestinians and is often difficult to obtain. There
are also numerous Israeli military checkpoints that must be cleared when
traveling from one area to another.
"They are really in a prison,"
Jabarin stated when describing the plight of Palestinians living in the
occupied territories. "All the roads in Gaza and the West Bank are closed
off and there are curfews in Hebron." In some cases, people must travel
through Jordan and Egypt in order to get from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip.
The military checkpoints are particularly
dangerous. "They often shoot people without any reason," Jabarin
highlighted. "We have documented many cases of such types of killings at
the checkpoints and all of them involve civilians, and even sometimes
women."
This restriction on movement makes human rights documentation more difficult.
"We cannot easily reach many places," Jabarin proclaimed. "We
cannot get out to the field and there is no real protection for the human
rights defenders on the ground."
Al-Haq field workers must face many dangers,
including the checkpoints, on a regular basis in order to obtain eyewitness
accounts of violations. Israeli soldiers often hold fieldworkers at checkpoints
for hours before releasing them, despite knowing that they are human rights
workers. This can gravely affect their ability to ac
curately document human rights violations.
In addition, Jabarin explained that "they have to move from place to place
and often cannot find places to stay and sleep."
In an effort to increase the safety and
efficiency of their work, Al-Haq has begun training volunteers located in
different areas to obtain primary information on violations. The presence of
foreign colleagues can also have a beneficial effect. "Sometimes they go
to the field with our field workers and this strengthens their position,"
Jabarin elucidated. Not under the same restrictions of movement as
Palestinians, foreign colleagues can also carry materials and documents on
behalf of field workers.
Trying to maintain a social life
"It is not easy for me to do this work
and have enough time for my family, friends, and social life," stated
Jabarin, the father of four children.
The separation from family and friends for
extended periods of time and lack of vacation puts a strain on human rights
activists. "We try at the office to manage our time and deal with the
social things like celebrating birthdays for the staff," Jabarin said.
"but you have nowhere to go and relax."
Jabarin described one instance when he
worked around the clock for one whole week following an Israeli incursion that
involved hundreds of arrests. Although trying to help people get information on
family members that had been arrested, Jabarin has no time to communicate with
his own.
Because of the restrictions on movement in
the Palestinian territories, what used to be a two-hour commute to the office
and back for Jabarin is now a 12-hour ordeal. He can no longer go home
everyday, but must stay in Ramallah for up to two weeks at a time without
seeing his family. While it is not easy, Jabarin is quick to explain that his
situation is not unique.
"All the Palestinian people live under
this situation," he quickly added. "Some people have not seen their
families for over a year."
Jabarin also feels solidarity with other
human rights defenders throughout the world and is encouraged that the human
rights movement has a good network internationally, regionally and locally.
While there is not much of a social network to fall back on, there is a
professional one that revolves around exchanging information about human rights
violations. "The work in human rights is difficult everywhere, not just in
Palestine," he surmised recognizing that such networks can help human
rights defenders strengthen each other.
Computers have also been especially helpful
in sustaining these connections and Al-Haq has used Internet technology to
their benefit. In 2003, they (it) plan to launch a campaign that will use the
Internet extensively concerning the collective punishment of Palestinians.
Jabarin also cited urgent action campaigns
as being very helpful. "When I was in administrative detention in 1997,
Amnesty International and various other organizations supported me by sending
me messages while I was in prison," he recounted. "In one day alone,
I received 450 letters from all over the world." At the time, Jabarin had
been in isolation from other prisoners for one-and-a-half months.
"They wrote to encourage me; they were
solidarity letters and they made me feel that I was not alone," said an
appreciative Jabarin. "They helped to strengthen me."
Particularly moving were the letters sent by
children. "Some were only four or five and could not write," revealed
Jabarin. "But they still sent me drawings and this reminded me of my own
children." Jabarin, who was not allowed visitors, was in prison during the
birth of his first child and was able to first meet him eleven months later.
However, he saw him for the first time in a
picture being held by former US President Jimmy Carter.
The picture, which made the front page of many newspapers, was taken when
Carter traveled to Jerusalem to present Al-Haq with the Carter Menil Human
Rights Award in 1990. "One day my colleagues said Sha'wan your son is in
the paper," said Jabarin, "And that was the first time I saw my
son."
For all the sacrifices that he has made, it
should be comforting for Jabarin to know he has made an impact. Although his
wife has encouraged their second son to become a doctor, he has expressed his
interest in working in human rights, just like his father.
There is no doubt that Jabarin's courage and
conviction will continue to inspire a second generation of human rights
defenders.
Since 1997, DFN has
increased awareness of human rights issues on the Internet, made technical
information more readily available to activists, and provided an online voice
to those not free to express themselves.
Shravanti Reddy received a Master of International Affairs from Columbia
University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), where she
completed a concentration in Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. Her main
interests are in women’s rights, children’s rights, refugee rights, and
economic and social rights. Prior to DFN, Shravanti worked for the Women’s
Commission for Refugee Women and Children, the Zimbabwe Human Rights
Association, and the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements. She has lived
and worked abroad in both Zimbabwe and Kenya and holds a BA in History from
Binghamton University (SUNY).