Ramallah – The Palestinian Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession (MUSAWA), in cooperation with the International Civil Forum Foundation and with the support of the Minority Rights Group (MRG) and the European Union, launched the first electronic platform concerned with the rights of minorities in Palestine, especially people with disabilities and Bedouins.
The platform includes three pages, the first of which deals with the latest legislation related to the rights of people with disabilities and Bedouins, and the opinion of equality in that legislation. The page allows all those interested in minority rights, individuals and groups, especially community activities and institutions, including relevant civil society institutions, to express their opinion and record it on the same page, or publish any statements, position papers or memoranda that they have issued related to that legislation and the rights of minorities.
The second page of the platform deals with individual and c
ollective complaints regarding any violation that may be committed against the rights of people with disabilities and Bedouins, in addition to Musawah’s opinion on those complaints and the measures it has taken regarding them, including its demands of the parties that caused those violations and the responses of those parties to those demands. The same page includes comments from those interested in the subject of the complaint and the rights of people with disabilities and Bedouins, as all interested parties can record their opinions and comments on the complaint and Musawah’s opinion, in addition to the complaint submission form that the complainant fills out if he/she wishes to submit a complaint.
The third page of the platform is dedicated to extracting and documenting information related to complaints in terms of their number, type, and the measures taken regarding them, whether by Musawah or the relevant official bodies, including accountability procedures, removing traces of violations, and ensuring t
he rights of those subjected to violations, as well as the number of new legislations related to minority rights, so that Musawah can extract and prepare periodic reports on everything related to the platform and the aspects of popular and official dealings with it.
All citizens and institutions can access, view and contribute to the platform via the following application:
http://www.musawa.ps
In the same context, a dialogue meeting was held that included representatives of community activities and coalitions, civil and media institutions concerned with defending the rights of minorities, including the Palestinian Coalition for Disability, Al-Baidar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights, the Stars of Hope Foundation for Women with Disabilities, and Mada News Agency.
The meeting was held for three hours at the headquarters of Najoum Al Amal in Al Bireh.
The meeting discussed the reality of minorities in Palestine and ways to enhance and activate the role of civil society institutions in protectin
g and defending the rights of minorities, especially those with disabilities and Bedouins, in terms of legislation and implementation.
The attendees pointed out the importance of the electronic platform established by the Musawa Center, which is concerned with documenting the legislation regulating the rights of minorities and the extent of their consistency or conflict with the constitutional rights and freedoms guaranteed to all Palestinians without discrimination, and the opinion of Musawa and legal institutions and activities on those legislations according to the latest edition, as the platform allocated space to document and publish those opinions, in addition to complaints arising from any violations that may be exposed to people with disabilities and Bedouins and the necessary measures to be taken regarding dealing with those violations and holding those responsible accountable and documenting all of that, in addition to Musawa’s position and its mechanism for dealing with individual or collective co
mplaints received by the platform, in addition to the opinions of personalities and community institutions concerned with protecting the rights of minorities and what was issued by us or taken by them to address those complaints and protect the rights of those whose rights were affected as a result of their occurrence.
The participants decided to organize a community awareness campaign that aims to introduce the rights of minorities and the means available to protect them, provide legal aid to the Bedouin community in their places of residence, and implement a series of meetings with public figures with the aim of expanding the scope of the advocacy and pressure campaign to protect the rights of minorities and enable their owners to obtain them.
A meeting was held on June 26th, in which twenty community activists, including nine women, participated. It was organized by the Palestinian Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession (MUSAWA) in cooperation with the International Civil F
orum and with the support of the Minority Rights Group (MRG) at the headquarters of the Stars of Hope Association in Al-Bireh under the title: ‘Opportunities and Challenges for Forming a Network to Protect Minority Rights in Palestine.’
The meeting, which lasted for two hours, also addressed the diagnosis of the most important demands and urgent basic rights that must be officially fulfilled, including a commitment to faithfully implement the health insurance system approved and issued by the previous government, which has become part of the current legislation and must be respected, including the formation of specialized committees with the authority to implement the provisions of the system, in addition to the Bedouins’ rights to water and pastures, marketing their products, fulfilling the requirements for their enjoyment of the right to health and education, choosing local bodies to represent them, and their right to housing and use of land in a manner that contributes to their stability and security.
Th
e attendees pointed out the importance of intensifying demands on official bodies to expedite the resolution of the obstacles that still prevent the official fulfillment of these rights and to place their urgent demands on the table of society and the relevant official bodies.
The attendees discussed the mechanisms available to develop the capacities of young activists, enabling them to develop their tools in defending the rights of citizens, including minorities, in addition to ways to provide legal aid to people with disabilities and Bedouins in their places of residence and to motivate community figures to further activate their role in defending the rights of minorities and deprived and marginalized groups.
In translation of what was stated in these meetings, five listening sessions were held with each of the following ministries:
Ministry of Social Development
Ministry of Local Government
The Ministry of Education and Higher Education
Ministry of Health
In addition to holding a hearing with the mu
nicipality of Nuweimah and Ad-Duyouk in Jericho Governorate
The dialogue with the Ministry of Social Development, which was held at the Carmel Hotel in Ramallah, focused on the rights of marginalized minorities, particularly the rights of people with disabilities and Bedouins, and their urgent and pressing demands.
Representatives of the participating institutions wondered about the reasons preventing the amendment of the 1999 Law for the Disabled, which has been under discussion since 2019 and which violates many of its provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was published late last year in the Official Gazette ‘Al-Waqa’i’.
They also asked about the reasons that prevent the establishment of a higher council for people with disabilities with the participation of their representatives, and the reasons that prevent the full and honest implementation of the health insurance system for people with disabilities, which the previous government considered one o
f its most prominent achievements, pointing in this context to the weak formation and performance of the specialized medical committee in determining the percentage of physical and functional disability and the needs that official bodies must secure for the disabled, as well as the shortcomings in defining the disabled person’s rights in the field of health insurance when visiting government hospitals, such as exemption from fees, for example.
They also called for the need to expedite the issuance of a disability card to ensure that the government provides the services it must provide, including humanitarian aid.
They asked about the Ministry’s plans to support and assist the Bedouins in a way that provides them with appropriate services in the health, social and educational fields, asking about the nature of the Ministry’s programmes dedicated to the Bedouins.
In turn, Mr. Abbas Diab, Director of the Disability Card Department for Persons with Disabilities in the Ministry, pointed out that his Ministry ha
s a financial assistance system that benefits 120,000 families, noting that this program has stopped providing assistance to the aforementioned families due to the financial crisis that the Authority is suffering from and the international donor agencies stopping their support for the program, stressing that the families benefiting from the program used to receive a financial grant once every three months, then once every six months, then the program has stopped until now.
He pointed out that there is a problem in the work of the medical committees because their members are general practitioners and not specialists, which hinders and negatively affects the role of the Ministry of Development in providing support to people with disabilities.
As for the hearing session with the Ministry of Local Government, it hosted the Public Relations Officer at the Ministry and the Officer in Charge of the Disability File, Mr. Sael Hanoun. Representatives of civil society institutions participating in the meeting confirme
d the absence of plans related to paving roads and providing infrastructure to enhance the resilience of the Bedouin communities, and the shortcomings of programs and procedures for adaptation for people with disabilities.
In the same context, they referred to the study of granting usufruct rights to the lands on which Bedouin communities are established and which belong to the Ministry of Endowments, state lands, and ordinary citizens, individuals or companies, in order to enable them to defend their right to exist and obstruct Judaization and displacement projects.
They pointed out that most Bedouins tend towards spatial stability, which requires the establishment of representative bodies for them, such as village councils or committees elected by them, which are responsible for protecting their interests and speaking on their behalf, in addition to providing logistical and human services with the aim of activating the performance of educational and health centers established by the Bedouins themselves, a
nd that the Ministry of Local Government and the government can provide such services and support to the Bedouins in a way that helps in their sustainability and responds to their rights, especially their right to education, health and water.
They pointed out that more than 90% of streets, sidewalks, buildings, public places and vital facilities do not suit the conditions of persons with disabilities, demanding at the same time that the buildings of ministries, municipalities and hospitals be first and foremost suitable for the movement of persons with disabilities in order to ensure their access to services.
They demanded that a number of male and female employees be allocated, especially in official institutions and private sector institutions, to deal with them and facilitate access to their needs.
They called for the integration of people with disabilities into the strategic plans that local authorities are working on, the employment of rehabilitation workers in municipalities and village councils, and
the implementation of the Palestinian Labor Law, which stipulates that 5% of workers in official and civil institutions and the private sector must be people with disabilities.
In turn, Sael Hanoun stressed that the mission of his ministry is limited to supervising, monitoring and guiding local government bodies, including municipalities, village councils and local committees, saying: ‘We, as local government, force the institutions under our responsibility to implement harmonization and we audit them as a requirement for licenses and tenders.
He pointed out the lack of sufficient accurate information, statistics and numbers about people with disabilities and places to rely on in providing services to them in their areas.
Regarding the demands of the Bedouin communities and their living conditions, Hanoun stressed that the lands on which the residents of the Bedouin communities reside are either Waqf lands, state lands, or private property, and that we, as a Ministry of Local Government, cannot provide any
services to any Bedouin community if its residents do not own the land on which they reside. His ministry is working hard to form committees for these Bedouin communities, and the obstacle to not forming a local authority is the failure to meet the conditions, especially the ‘land ownership’ clause, in accordance with the applicable laws.
While the dialogue focused in the listening session with the Ministry of Education, which hosted Ms. Nariman Al-Sharawneh, Director of the Special Education Department in the Ministry, and Mr. Iyad Ladadweh, on the rights of marginalized and deprived minorities, especially those with disabilities and Bedouins, explaining their rights and urgent and pressing demands.
Participants in the meeting pointed out the dangers of looking at people with disabilities and Bedouins as if they are from another planet, and depriving people with hearing, visual and motor disabilities of their right to environmental adaptations in schools, noting that people with motor disabilities are forc
ed to remain in the same classroom because they are unable to reach the upper floors of schools until the end of their academic stage, in addition to depriving people with visual disabilities from studying mathematics. They also pointed out the lack of the ‘Braille’ language and the delay in receiving educational materials for nearly a whole semester, while they have the right to receive them at the beginning of the new school semester, wondering why the new school buildings are not adapted? In addition to the lack of a sufficient number of assistant writers for the visually or hearing impaired, and the refusal of some teachers to place people with partial hearing disabilities in the front seats in school classes, and the great shortage of sign language teachers and supervisors, and the absence of accurate statistics on the numbers of people with disabilities in Palestinian cities, villages and camps and the types of disabilities specific to them.
The participants wondered about the reasons for the delay of
the official authorities with the authority and the relevant party in publishing the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which the State of Palestine joined in 2014 and was published in the Official Gazette ‘Al-Waqa’i’ late last year, i.e. ten years after signing and joining it, and the official failure to organize community awareness campaigns to confront the phenomenon of bullying towards people with disabilities and Bedouins.
The participants stressed that the situation of the Bedouins is very similar to that of people with disabilities, as they are still deprived of an educational environment that fosters success. Some Bedouin communities suffer from the lack of basic education, the government’s refusal to pay the expenses of schools established by Bedouin communities, such as electricity, the failure to appoint experienced teachers, and the limitation of appointment to teachers with recent experience and appointment. They warned of the negative effects of depriving Bedou
in female students from completing their education, pointing out, for example, that 120 female students were forced to drop out of school and not complete their education due to the lack of secondary schools and the failure to secure safe transportation for them to schools in neighboring areas where their families reside.
Some participants pointed out that Bedouin students are deprived of academic scholarships, indicating that they submitted a request to grant a number of Bedouin male and female students university scholarships, and that they have not yet received a response to their request submitted to the official authorities since April 23. They called for the integration of people with disabilities and Bedouins into the approved strategic plans of the General Administration of Special Education, and for those plans to be put into effect, and the importance of implementing an awareness campaign for mothers and fathers on how to deal humanely with people with disabilities and Bedouins.
For her part, the
Ministry representative pointed out that the most prominent obstacles preventing the fulfillment of the rights of people with disabilities and Bedouins are due to the budget deficit, noting that the Ministry is unable to repair the ‘Braille printing’ machines, even though the cost of repairing them does not exceed $500.
She acknowledged that the Ministry lacks accurate statistics on the number of people with disabilities and Bedouins, their areas of residence, and their real needs, praising the role of the General Administration of Special Education, noting that its supervisory role over schools for the blind (visually impaired) suffers from weakness that negatively affects the good performance of the administrations and teachers of those schools.
She acknowledged that the ministry has not made any new appointments for special education or kindergarten teachers for three years, as well as supervisors and teachers alike, and that the ministry is unable to secure the necessary equipment for people with disabi
lities to receive distance education, stressing that the refusal of some parents to acknowledge the disability of their daughters in particular constitutes an objective obstacle to securing their rights, acknowledging the need to take into account the compatibility of new school buildings, noting that the ministry building itself is not compatible, pointing to the need to allocate special budgets to integrate people with disabilities.
Representatives of civil society organizations met with the Mayor of Nuweimah and Ad-Duyuk in Jericho, Mr. Hussam Ali Driaat, and Ms. Amal Juma Abu Malek, in a hearing session that addressed the rights and demands of Bedouins and people with disabilities residing in the Jericho area, and the role of the municipality and relevant official bodies in fulfilling those demands and rights.
The Bedouin representatives reaffirmed their old, new, renewed and repeated demands that have not been heeded by successive Palestinian governments, revealing their insistence and continuation of
their demands and their investment in any opportunity to make their voice heard to pressure all decision-makers, including the government, to quickly respond to their basic human and national rights guaranteed to them by the Declaration of Independence and the Basic Law, starting with their right to citizenship, residence and stability in their homeland, describing their adherence to their rights as an expression of their commitment to their national duty to defend the Palestinian land and identity, reiterating their demands to the Ministry of Endowments ‘the owner of endowment properties and responsible for their management and disposal,’ the Land Authority and the State Property Administration, the Ministry of Local Government and Municipalities and the private sector, each within the framework of its jurisdiction and powers, to grant the Bedouins contracts or authorizations to dispose of the lands on which they reside under written contracts that help them confront the settlers’ repeated attempts to displa
ce and expel them from the lands on which they reside. They reiterated their demands again: With the approval of the official authorities of the master plan that was prepared by them years ago and is still not approved or implemented, which prevented the provision of appropriate infrastructure such as streets, roads, water and electricity meters, and they demanded support for their steadfastness by exempting them from taxes and providing them with water and electricity similar to the camps.
For his part, the mayor pointed out that the Nuweimeh and Ad-Duyouk municipalities are suffering from a financial crisis that led to the power outage at the municipality headquarters itself due to the accumulation of the electricity company’s debts to the municipality. He noted that the municipality has collected from the Ministry of Finance only 20,000 dinars out of 200,000 dinars in property tax, and the Ministry of Finance is still refusing to refer the municipality’s dues to it. In the same context, Ms. Amal pointed o
ut that the Nuweimeh and Ad-Duyouk municipalities have requested the relevant official authorities to reduce taxes on their residents, but these authorities are still refusing to respond to this request, noting that the weakness of collection and the decline in revenues from license fees has led to the municipality’s inability to pay the electricity bill and administrative expenses necessary for its work, expressing her support for exempting livestock from taxes and supporting feed prices in light of the crazy rise in their prices. The mayor stressed the municipality’s efforts to provide what it can to all citizens, including Bedouins and people with disabilities, stressing that their demands are legitimate, but they are beyond the municipality’s jurisdiction and capabilities.
On July 22nd, a hearing session was held with the Palestinian Ministry of Health, which included Dr. Yasser Bouzieh, Director General of Public Health, Dr. Samer Asaad, Head of the Disability File at the Ministry, Dr. Tariq Araikat fro
m the same department, Dr. Arwa Sawalmeh, Head of the Insurance Department at the Ministry, and Rawan Al-Tarifi from the Public Relations Department.
Representatives of civil society organizations participating in the meeting raised a number of important issues for persons with disabilities as well as Bedouins, most notably the emphasis that the health insurance system for persons with disabilities is still not fully implemented in all government health departments and is still being applied in violation of its provisions, which stipulate that it applies to all persons with disabilities regardless of their degree of disability. They called for harmonizing Palestinian legislation with the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and for actual and practical commitment to its implementation, especially after its publication in the Official Gazette ‘Palestinian Gazette.’
They confirmed that they had received complaints stating that the health insurance system for persons with disabil
ities had not been put into practice in several aspects, including its comprehensiveness, fees, and specialization in the relevant medical committees.
Regarding the rights of Bedouin communities, the civil society institutions participating in the meeting pointed out the absence of qualified medical clinics, the shortage of human cadres and necessary equipment, ambulances for emergency cases, and the lack of coverage of their health insurance system for ‘single’ Bedouins!
For his part, Dr. Yasser Bouzieh confirmed that the file of persons with disabilities is one of the most monitored and concerned files by the Ministry of Health, and for this reason, work was done years ago to approve the health insurance system for persons with disabilities. He added, saying: ‘We at the Ministry of Health are in constant contact with civil society institutions with the aim of developing the health services provided to citizens, as well as exchanging ideas and experiences in a way that serves the Palestinian citizen in the
first place.
He added that the Ministry will review the health insurance system again and work on issuing the necessary circulars to include all people with disabilities regardless of their disability percentage, after reviewing the system and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by the Ministry and the Legal Department, especially if the system includes insurance coverage for them without mentioning the disability percentage, contrary to what is currently in effect, which requires a disability percentage of 60% to be eligible for insurance, and it will work to cancel such a condition.
In the same context, Dr. Samer Asaad said that the circulars related to the health insurance system for people with disabilities are clearly implemented in various health directorates, saying: Some failures may occur here or there by some employees in the Ministry of Health because they do not know that the sick person who visits them is a person with a disability due to the constant pressure on govern
ment health departments, even though the health insurance for people with disabilities states that its owner is a person with a disability, stressing that if a mistake occurs, we follow it up and do not justify it.
It is noteworthy that the institutions that participated in these sessions included, in addition to Musawa and the International Civil Forum, the Al-Haq Foundation, the Hurriyat Center, the Al-Baidar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights, the Shams Center, the Palestinian Coalition for Disability, Mada News Agency, the General Union of People with Disabilities, the Young Men’s Christian Association, the Stars of Hope Association, and activists from both genders.
It is noteworthy that these meetings come within the context of implementing the program to protect the rights of people with disabilities and Bedouins, which is implemented by the Palestinian Center for the Independence of the Legal Profession and the Judiciary ‘MUSAWA’ in cooperation with the International Civil Forum and with
the support of the Minority Rights Group (MRG) and the European Union.
Source: Maan News Agency