Israel expels Human Rights Watch advocacy director

In a joint statement released May 9, 15 human rights organizations denounced Interior Minister Aryeh Deri's decision to order the expulsion of Omar Shakir, the director of Human Rights Watch for Israel and Palestine.

The statement reads that the decision to expel Shakir and Israel’s growing list of people who cannot enter the country because of their criticism of the occupation are “intended to hide the occupation from the world.” They further claim that the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, headed by Gilad Erdan, is putting together “personal files” on foreign human rights activists operating in Israel and that the information collected is being used to hinder their activities.

Shakir, a US citizen with a law degree from Stanford University, received a work visa for Israel about a year ago. Now he is being ordered to leave the country. According to Deri, the decision is based on a position paper prepared by the Ministry for Strategic Affairs that claims that Shakir is a longtime active supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and that he tweets regularly in support of the movement’s goals.

Attorney Sari Bashi, the Israel/Palestine advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, told Al-Monitor that the group does not support BDS. “We believe in adopting nonviolent measures to protest or express political opinions, but we have no official position whatsoever regarding the movement to boycott Israel, and all employees of the organization are required to abide by that.” According to her, Shakir is forbidden from expressing support for or opposition to BDS, “and he has not done so since joining the organization. All the material collected against him dates from when he was a student at Stanford, and even then, it is open to multiple interpretations.”