The International Association of Democratic Lawyers, an international alliance of lawyers and legal organizations accredited to ECOSOC and UNESCO, convened its Council meeting virtually on 3-4 December 2022, considering a number of important issues.
The IADL, which brings together progressive lawyers and legal organizations from all continents, addressed a wide variety of global topics during the Council meeting, including political prisoners in Turkey, United Nations advocacy, the Ukraine situation, developments in Brazil, international peace conferences, and the upcoming International Peoples’ Tribunal on US Imperialism: Sanctions, Blockades and Coercive Economic Measures. It considered and adopted several resolutions related to Palestine and the struggle of Palestinian prisoners for justice and liberation.
One resolution adopted by the IADL calls for the immediate release of French-Palestinian lawyer Salah Hamouri to his home in Jerusalem, and urges the French government to take meaningful action to block the stripping of his Jerusalem residency and threatened deportation, including refusing to accept any deportation flight.
The second IADL resolution on Palestine endorses the campaign to Free the Holy Land Five, highlighting the cases of Ghassan Elashi, Shukri Abu Baker and Mufid Abdulqader as an outrageous violation of civil and human rights in the United States.
Another IADL resolution highlighted German repression targeting Palestinians and supporters of Palestine, urging the German federal and state governments to cease the ongoing practices of political bans, threats of deportation, targeting of students’ visas, and criminalization of protests and demonstrations for justice and liberation in Palestine, highlighting examples like the political ban and expulsion of Palestinian writer Khaled Barakat, the political ban and deportation of former political prisoner and torture survivor Rasmea Odeh and the Berlin ban on Nakba commemorations.
Finally, the IADL also endorsed the Kick Out Apartheid campaign and a letter by lawyers urging FIFA to take action against Israeli apartheid in football by excluding the Israel Football Association.
Since IADL’s founding in 1946 in Paris, IADL members have participated in the struggles that have made the violation of human rights of groups and individuals and threats to international peace and security, legal issues under international law. From its inception, IADL members throughout the globe have protested racism, colonialism, and economic and political injustice wherever they interfere with legal and human rights, often at the cost of these jurists’ personal safety and economic well being. IADL members in the United States, Canada, France, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Italy, Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom, Austria, the Philippines, Japan, Spain, Portugal, Togo, South Africa, Bangladesh and India, among others, participated in the Council convening.
Read and download the resolutions:
IADL – Freedom for Salah HamouriFree the Holy Land Five (Download PDF)
IADL – Holy Land FiveGerman repression (Download PDF)
IADL – Germany and Palestine
