URGENT ACTION
NGO worker under administrative detention 
Ayman Nasser, the legal unit coordinator of Palestinian NGO Addameer, has been issued a six-month administrative detention order by the Israeli military commander of the West Bank. He has been held by Israel without charge or trial since 9 September.
On 17 September, the Israeli military commander of the West Bank issued a six-month administrative detention order against Ayman Nasser. The order is set to end on 8 March 2019 and should be confirmed by a military judge at a confirmation hearing which has not been set yet. Ayman Nasser is currently held inside Ofer prison, near the city of Ramallah in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). 
On 9 September, Ayman Nasser was arrested by Israeli forces during an overnight raid on his home in the village of Saffa, near Ramallah in the OPT. Haleema Nasser, his wife, described the arrest to Amnesty International: ‘’On Sunday at approximately 2:00am, more than 10 Israeli soldiers violently broke into our house. They woke up Ayman, myself and the children. They kept all of us in the living room while they were searching the house. They took our identity cards and mobile phones, and then they returned all of them except Ayman’s.’’ She added, ‘’the soldiers took Ayman and two of our sons Ameen (20 years old) and Naji (18 years old) outside for interrogation. After around an hour, the soldiers allowed Ayman to say goodbye to us and to take his medication with him. They left us all upset and worried. I’m worried because of my husband’s health condition. He is too old to go through this again.”

According to his wife, Ayman Nasser has a number of health issues including inflammation in his colon and severe back pain due to a herniated disk in the lower back. He is in need of constant medical treatment and checks by specialized doctors. 

Ayman Nasser works as a legal unit coordinator for Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, a Palestinian human rights organization based in Ramallah. 

Please write immediately in Hebrew, English or your own language:
•	Calling on the Israeli authorities to immediately release Ayman Nasser, and all others who have been placed under administrative detention, unless they are promptly charged with an internationally recognizable crime and tried in proceedings that adhere to international fair trial standards;
•	Calling on the Israeli authorities to provide Ayman Nasser access to adequate healthcare, including treatment by specialized doctors; 
•	Urging the Israeli authorities to take immediate steps to end the practice of administrative detention.
 
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 02 NOVEMBER 2018 TO:

Minister of Defence  
Avigdor Liberman                          
Ministry of Defence                    
37 Kaplan Street, Hakirya Tel Aviv 61909, Israel 
Email:minister@mod.gov.il; pniot@mod.gov.il 
Fax: +972 3 691 6940 
Salutation: Dear Minister
Commander of the IDF – West Bank 
Major-General Roni Numa 
GOC Central Command  
Military Post 02367, Battalion 877  
Israel Defence Forces, Israel  
Fax: +972 2 530 5741, +972 2 530 5724 
Salutation: Dear Major-General Roni Numa 

And copies to:
Minister of Public Security 
Gilad Erdan 
Kiryat Hamemshala 
PO Box 18182 
Jerusalem 91181, Israel 
Fax: +972 2 584 7872       
Email: gerdan@knesset.gov.il 
Salutation: Dear Minister

Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country. HIS EXCELLENCY MR MARK REGEV, Embassy of Israel, 
2 Palace Green Kensington W8 4QB, 020 7957 9500, info@london.mfa.gov.il www.london.mfa.gov.il 
Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date. 

URGENT ACTION
ngo worker under administratIve detention 
ADditional Information
Ayman Nasser, 48 years old and father of four, holds a BA degree in Social Work and a Master’s degree in Educational Socio-Psychology from al-Quds University in Abu Dis, east of Jerusalem. Ayman has been working for Addameer since 2008, where he started as a researcher in its documentation unit and in 2015 became the organization’s legal unit coordinator. According to Addameer, he represented the organization in many local human rights coalitions, including the Coalition against Torture and the Coalition against the Death Penalty. Ayman also serves as the chairperson and one of the founders of the Handalah Cultural Centre in the village of Saffa, which was established in 1998 to provide the youth of the village with dance, sports, art and educational programs. 

Ayman Nasser has spent seven years of his life in Israeli prisons and detention centres. From 1992 to 1997, he served a five-year sentence imposed by an Israeli court, where he was charged with multiple offences including membership of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a left-wing political party with an armed wing, banned by Israel. Since his release he has been arrested two times, on 15 October 2012, where he was sentenced, after a plea bargain, to 13 months in prison, and on 18 September 2014, where he spent a year in administrative detention. 

Amnesty International has collected evidence over many years indicating that administrative detention (ostensibly introduced as an exceptional measure to detain people who pose an extreme and imminent danger to security) is used regularly by the Israeli authorities as a form of political detention, enabling the authorities to arbitrarily detain political prisoners, including prisoners of conscience, and that the practice is used to punish them for their views and suspected political affiliations when they have not committed any crime. Orders can be renewed indefinitely and evidence is kept secret, meaning that detainees are not able to effectively challenge their detention and do not know when they will be released. Since October 2015, violence in Israel and the OPT has increased dramatically. As during other periods of heightened tension in the OPT, the Israeli authorities have responded by carrying out mass arrests, issuing increasing number of administrative detention orders, and resuming the use of administrative detention against children. According to the Palestinian human rights organization Addameer, as of August 2018, there were 456 administrative detainees, including two children and two Palestinian Legislative Council members, held without charge or trial by Israel.

Amnesty International has documented an escalation of acts of intimidation by the Israeli government against Palestinian civil society organizations and human rights activists in the OPT, including Addameer. Ayman Nasser is the second Addameer staff member to be held in administrative detention. The organization’s field researcher in Jerusalem, Salah Hammouri, has been detained since 23 August 2017 without charge or trial. An additional three staff members from the organization are currently banned by the Israeli authorities from travelling abroad. Addameer’s board member Khalida Jarrar has also been held under administrative detention since 2 July 2017. Israel has also taken steps to curtail freedom of expression inside Israel with officials using intimidation and smear campaigns to target human rights organizations and their staff.

Name: Ayman Nasser
Gender m/f: m

UA: 171/18 Index MDE 15/9144/2018 Issue Date: 21 September 2018