Human Rights Watch called on the Israeli occupation authorities to "immediately" release Salah Hammouri, the French-Palestinian human rights defender, who is being held in administrative detention, and to rescind the decision to cancel his residency in his hometown of Jerusalem.
Israeli authorities detained Hammouri on March 7, 2022, and he has been in administrative detention since then without trial or charge based on secret evidence.
Hammouri is a lawyer working with the Addameer Foundation for Palestinian Prisoners’ Rights, which was banned by the Israeli authorities last year.
On October 17, 2021, the Israeli Ministry of Interior canceled Hamouri's residency under the pretext of "violating loyalty" to Israel, a step that could lead to his deportation from occupied East Jerusalem.
The organization warned that international humanitarian law expressly prohibits the occupying power from forcing the people under its occupation to pledge allegiance to it.
She said that "revocation of residency - as in the case of apartheid and persecution against millions of Palestinians - is one of the policies adopted by the Israeli authorities, which amount to crimes against humanity."
Omar Shakir, director of Human Rights Watch's Israel and Palestine office, said that the Israeli authorities "held Salah Hammouri for months without trial or charges, banned the human rights organization he works for, and canceled his residency in Jerusalem."
Shaker added that "Hammouri's plight embodies the struggle of Palestinian human rights defenders who are challenging apartheid and oppression in Israel."
The military courts based their decisions on Hamouri's detention and the extension of his detention on secret information that it claimed indicated his involvement in the activities of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Palestinian political movement.
The organization said that Hamouri's detention - for mere association or political activity with the Front, without any evidence of his involvement in a "violent act" - violates his right to freedom of association.
According to Addameer, Hammouri said that last July, the Israeli authorities classified him as a very dangerous detainee after an open letter he wrote about his ordeal to French President Emmanuel Macron.
As a result of this classification, the authorities transferred Hammouri from Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank to Hadarim prison inside Israel, even though international humanitarian law prohibits the transfer of residents of the occupied territories “outside.”
Addameer also reported that Israeli forces handcuffed and searched him repeatedly during the hours-long transfer, and Hammouri spent the night in a poorly ventilated iron cage in Ramle prison in central Israel.
The Israeli Ministry of Interior revoked Hamouri's residency under a 2018 amendment to the 1952 Entry into Israel Law that grants the right to revoke permanent residency for anyone suspected of "breaching allegiance to the State of Israel."