IHRC has launched a crowdfunding appeal to fight a potentially groundbreaking legal appeal that could pave the way for refusenik Israelis and Palestinians living in Israel to claim asylum in the UK.

The Jewish rabbinical student, whose name is being withheld for his personal safety, Israel after being detained and beaten by Israeli authorites on several occasions for vocally supporting Palestinian rights and oppsing Zionism and Israeli apartheid policies.

However, The UK Home Office rejected his asylum claim and he has appealed the decision to an independent Tribunal.

He fears that should he return to Israel, he will be persecuted like other anti-Zionists and also be conscripted into Israel’s armed forces and made complicit in war crimes and crimes against humanity.

IHRC believes the case has the potential to set a significant legal precedent, not only for Jewish Israelis resisting conscription, but for Palestinians oppressed by Israel’s apartheid regime.

All funds raised will be used to pay our client’s legal fees as well as expenses for expert witnesses, interpreters, and travel costs.

To assist judges and the Home Office to understand the risks associated with certain countries and conflicts, the Upper Tribunal regularly hands down binding ‘Country Guidance’ cases. Yet when it comes to Israel/Palestine, there is no such case explaining the central issue of Israel’s systematic racial discrimination.

We maintain that is simply not possible to properly consider our client’s case without addressing apartheid, which is a legal concept codified in the 2002 Rome Statute and the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.

The need to consider apartheid has become particularly pressing following the recent release of reports from B’Tselem and Human Rights Watch, both concluding that Israel is governed by an apartheid regime that systematically dominates and oppresses Palestinians.

More details are available here.

For more information or comment please contact the Press Office on (+44) 7958522196[ENDS]

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IHRC is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
Islamic Human Rights Commission
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