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About us
The Palestinian Human Rights
Monitoring Group (PHRMG) was founded in December 1996 in response to the
deteriorating state of democracy and human rights under the newly
established Palestinian Authority. The group was founded by a diverse
group of well-established Palestinians, including Palestinian Legislative
Council (PLC) members, newspaper editors, journalists, a union leader,
veteran human rights activists and religious leaders. The political
composition of its founders is diverse - including members of many Palestinian
organizations and institutions - thereby ensuring the non-partisan
character of the organization.
The PHRMG documents human
rights violations committed against Palestinians in the West
Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem,
regardless of who is responsible. In effect, the PHRMG has dedicated much
of its work to the monitoring of human rights violations committed by the
Palestinian Authority. The PHRMG has instituted a number of projects to
deal with the ongoing human rights violations. The projects include
monitoring unit, freedom of expression and democracy center, settlers
watch hotline and legal unit, etc… Our future projects in the coming two
years include peace building development, peace building and conflict
resolution monitoring, reforms to the Palestinian judicial system,
democracy center, public education and out reach unit, etc…
The PHRMG believes that in
spite of the ongoing Israeli occupation of the Palestinian
Territories and the need to
denounce Israeli human rights abuses, such scrutiny is essential in the
current process of state building, to ensure that the future
Palestinian
State will be a truly
democratic one. In the long run, the protection of human rights can only
strengthen the Palestinian Authority.
Due to the absence and/or poor
reliability of traditional democratic mechanisms, the PHRMG's principle
strategy since its foundation has been to appeal to Palestinian
public opinion and to international opinion in order to bring about
positive change in the human rights situation. Violations of Palestinian
human rights by both Palestinian and Israeli authorities persist with
little accountability and, for the foreseeable future, the PHRMG will
maintain and improve upon its traditional human rights monitoring and
outreach activities.
PHRMG Relationship with the International, Local
Community
The PHRMG maintains strong ties
with international human rights groups, media and donors. Their
cooperation and partnership has proved vital to PHRMG’s outreach and
support internationally, as well as to PHRMG’s ability to maintain its
high degree of independence at home. As illustrations;
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Reporters without Borders
regularly utilize PHRMG unpublished and published research for their
reports. Since 1999, PHRMG director Bassem Eid gave 220 interviews
to international media.
About Monitoring Unit
Our monitoring unit provides
the monitoring and research base for PHRMG human rights outreach and
legal activities. Field researchers located throughout the West
Bank and the Gaza Strip divide their responsibilities into
their geographic areas. Researcher responsibilities include keeping
abreast of local developments, pursuing long-term monitoring tasks, and
responding to urgent human rights situations, in order to record the
eyewitness testimonies of victims, witnesses and other actors.
See the monitor in the
icon of the monitor page
About Outreach Unit
Our outreach unit works closely
with the Monitoring Unit. One of the main activities of the PHRMG is the
publication of a bi-monthly report; the Palestinian Human Rights Monitor.
Each edition of this publication has a particular focus: from torture and
unlawful detention to freedom of expression and the censorship of the Palestinian
press, or the right to education of Palestinian children in East
Jerusalem. The Monitor has now earned a reputation for the
quality, accuracy and objectivity of its reports. 1'000 English copies of
the report are available for subscription in the form of a magazine, and
26'000 Arabic copies are distributed freely throughout the West
Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem,
in the hope to educate the Palestinian public and to strengthen democracy
and the role of civil society.
Other Outreach activities
include facilitating local and international media access to human rights
issues in Palestine,
initiating dialogue activities with institutions responsible for human
rights violations, and implementing special projects. The PHRMG also
maintains an extensive website - both in Arabic and in English - to grant
wide access to all the publications of the Monitor, unpublished reports,
and additional data and statistics collected by the organization.
About Bassem Eid
The PHRMG derives great
strength from the experience of its Executive Director, Bassem Eid. Mr.
Eid worked as the senior fieldworker for the Israeli information center
in the occupying territories, B'Tselem for seven years. During this time,
Mr. Eid earned international recognition for his documentation and
publication of a wide range of human rights issues.
Mr. Eid is the co-author
of the B'Tselem report on the Palestinian Preventive Security Service,
"Neither Law nor Justice," and was involved in research
for nearly every B'Tselem publication from 1989 to 1996. In appreciation
for his work for B'Tselem and as a journalist, Mr. Eid was awarded the
1992 Emil Grunsweig Human Rights Award by the Association for
Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).
Mr. Eid was also awarded
the 1996 McGill / InterAmicus Robert S. Litvak Memorial Human Rights
Award for his outspoken human rights advocacy. More recently, in
1999, the Gleitsman Foundation's Board of Judges presented Mr. Eid with
the International Activist Award, in recognition of "his long
effort to bring peace to the Middle East."
This award was jointly received with ten other activists, including
Mahmoud Abbas; Abu Mazen, Yossi Beilin, Faisal Husseini, Ahmed Qurei;
Abu
Ala and Uri Savir. 2002
nformazione Senza Frontiere (Information Without Boundaries), granted
by an Italian organization for freedom of press in the world in
Siena-Italy.
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