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Put
an end to the imprisonment of Omar Sa’ad and all other
individuals who are detained solely for their conscientious objection to
military service
This
petition is endorsed by 16 organizations who campaign
for human rights, the right to resist military conscription and others - see
full list below.
After
he turned 18 in November 2013, Arab Palestinian Druze musician Omar Sa’ad, who is an Israeli citizen, from Maghar in the Galilee, was called-up for conscription for 4
December 2013 - he declared publicly his “refus[al] to take an assault
rifle and point it at another human being.”
Omar
Sa’ad, like a growing number of Druze Palestinian
citizens of Israel, does not want to be a part of the Israeli army because – in
his words - “the Israeli government is responsible for the occupation [of the
Palestinian Territories]. As an Arab Druze I consider myself part of the
Palestinian people - so how can I be part of the army that occupies my people? I
won’t sell all my beliefs and my identity to anyone.”
The
right to reject military service on grounds of conscientious objection is
protected under international human rights law, including the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Israel has
ratified.
Since
December 2013, Omar Sa’ad has been in and out of
prison, where he has spent 149 days, generally serving sentences of between 14
and 20 days at a time before being released and called up to serve the next day.
Most recently, on April 13 he began, a seventh prison
sentence of 40 days. At the beginning of May, he was denied medical attention by
the military prison authorities for three days despite the seriousness of his
condition, which apparently relates to a virus affecting his liver. He was eventually transferred to hospital in
Haifa where he remained for over a week before being allowed home to
recuperate. He may be returned to prison
after 28 May to serve the remainder of his sentence.
The
organizations named below consider him and others imprisoned on such grounds,
such as Uriel Ferera, to be prisoners of conscience and we call on the
Israeli authorities to release them and any other conscientious objectors
immediately and unconditionally.
Several
Israeli teenagers go to prison each year because of their moral objection to
serving in the army. Since 8 March 2014, over 100 high school seniors have
written to Prime Minister Netanyahu saying that they will “refuse
to
serve in the occupation army”, apparently the largest group of such “refusers in the history of Israel”.
The
students said they were protesting “the ongoing occupation of Palestinian
territories where … human rights are violated and acts defined by international
law as war-crimes are perpetuated on a daily basis.“
Their
letter came amidst the Israeli government’s plans to broaden army conscription
and Israel's Supreme Court decision to overrule the Tal Law, which allowed
special deferrals of military service granted only to ultra-Orthodox Jews,
resulting in most of them not serving at all.
Although
the Israeli army’s Conscience Committee can decide to allow a conscientious
objector exemption from military service, it is only empowered to do so on grounds of pacifism. While Omar's refusal is based on
ideological grounds that includes pacifism, he was not
allowed to see the Committee.
There
are other military committees which consider exemptions on the grounds of
religious beliefs.
According
to the UN Human Rights Committee no discrimination is permitted “among
conscientious objectors on the basis of the nature of their particular beliefs”
- i.e. whether they are religious or otherwise (General Comment 22, para. 11).
Excerpts
from Omar Sa’ad’s Refusal Declaration
"I
refuse because I am a man of peace and I hate all forms of violence, and the
military institution represents for me the peak of physical and psychological
violence. Since I received the notice to appear for tests, my life has changed,
I became more nervous, my thoughts were distracted, I remembered thousands of
cruel images, and I couldn’t imagine myself wearing military uniform and
participating in the suppression of my Palestinian people or fighting my Arab
brothers. I oppose the recruitment to the Israeli military and any other
military for conscience and nationalistic reasons. I hate the injustice and
oppose the occupation; I hate intolerance and restriction of freedoms. I hate
those who detain children, the elderly and women."
“I
am a musician, I play the Viola , I have played in many places, I have musician
friends from Ramallah, Jericho, Jerusalem, Hebron, Nablus, Jenin, Shfa’amr, Eilabun, Rome, Athens, Amman, Beirut, Damascus, Oslo, and we
all play for freedom, humanity and peace, our weapon is the music and we shall
not have any other weapon." http://www.wri-irg.org/node/20565
This
petition is endorsed by:
Orfod-Refuse, Your nation will protect you campaign
Union of Youth National Democratic Assembly
-We will not serve in your army
Student
Department of Communist Party of Israel (CPI) & Democratic Front for Peace
& Equality (DFPE)
AFSC (American
Friends Service Committee)
To:
Moshe Ya’alon, Minister of Defence, Israel, Ministry
of Defence
Dear
Minister
I just signed a petition urging you to put an end to the imprisonment of Israeli citizen Omar Sa’ad (Military ID 08143090). Omar Sa’ad, a Palestinian-Druze, is a conscientious objector to military service, imprisoned for the seventh time in a row on 13 April for his refusal to serve in the Israeli army. He is currently held at Military Prison #4 near Tel Aviv. Conscientious objection to military service is a right derived from Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which upholds the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. As such, Omar Sa’ad and others imprisoned for their conscientious objection to military service are prisoners of conscience. The repeated conviction and imprisonment of individuals in Israel for the same “offence”, their conscientious objection to carry out military service, was identified by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in 2003 as amounting to arbitrary detention. The Israeli Government is obliged to take all necessary steps to ensure that the right to refuse military service on grounds of conscience is fully protected. In the meantime, I call upon you to ensure that Omar Sa’ad and all other individuals held solely for their conscientious objection to military service are released immediately and unconditionally. Sincerely
[Your
name]
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Thursday, May 22, 2014
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