The UN accuses France of getting “harshly” repressed pro-Palestinian demonstrations | EUROtoday

“Never on demonstrations for Israel”

“Demonstrations on campuses in the United States have been harshly repressed,” she mentioned, referring to the intervention on the finish of April by the New York riot police to dislodge dozens of pro-Palestinian activists who occupied a part of Columbia University.

As for European nations, Irene Khan focused “Germany (which) imposed a total ban on pro-Palestinian demonstrations last October, and since then, restrictions on these protests in various German regions.” “Never on demonstrations for Israel, but always on pro-Palestinian ones,” she careworn.

“France tried to take the same measures but the courts rejected them and the evaluation is done on a case-by-case basis,” continued the lawyer, citing once more “Belgium and Canada having adopted identical positions”.

At the beginning of the Israeli offensive in Gaza a yr in the past, the French Interior Ministry requested that pro-Palestinian demonstrations be systematically banned as a result of potential disturbances to public order. The Council of State, the very best administrative court docket, had referred to as the federal government to order by demanding choices on a case-by-case foundation.

Israel singled out

Irene Khan additionally castigated Israel for “severe assaults towards the media within the Occupied Palestinian Territories – Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem – the focused assassinations of journalists, arbitrary detentions, dozens of destructions of infrastructure and tools of the press in Gaza, the refusal to let the worldwide press in.” “The tightening of censorship in Israel and the Occupied Territories suggests that the Israeli authorities have a strategy to silence critical journalism,” she concluded.