Mentions or features of ELSC in external media.
The European Legal Support Centre urges the University of Birmingham to drop disciplinary charges against Mariyah Ali and Antonia Listrat, student leaders targeted for protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza. Their case highlights a broader UK crackdown on Palestine solidarity, threatening freedom of expression, student democracy, and the right to protest.
Deutsche Übersetzung unten / النسخة العربية أدناه Since October of last year, in a wave of escalating state repression, countless criminal charges and misdemeanours have been brought against the Palestine solidarity movement. But as we expected, dozens of cases have since been dropped. This should not surprise us, as most of the slogans and…
DUTCH VERSION BELOW Joint Press Release by European Legal Support Center (ELSC), Stop Arms Trade, Solid Sustainability Research, The Rights Forum – Amsterdam, 7 June 2024 Relations with Israel’s military-industrial complex and Israeli human rights violations underline demands from actions at universities Today, civil society organisations Stop Arms Trade, European Legal Support Center (ELSC) and…
The ELSC gave an interview to Dr Sevgi Doğan for Security Praxis blog about the impact of the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism on academic freedom and unfounded allegations of antisemitism in academia. Read it below.
UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) member, Lesley Klaff, provided “expert witness testimony” in support of a pro-Israel teacher accused of posting antisemitic material. Her testimony contradicts UKLFI’s usual position on anti-Zionist commentary. In April 2022, she testified to a Panel for the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) that the IHRA definition of antisemitism is not to be interpreted strictly, but rather on a case-by-case basis, and that it should not be used to sanction people or restrict their freedom of speech.
The ELSC expressly condemns the holding of a course that is likely to fuel insidious censorship of genuine anti-racist discourse.
The ELSC co-signed a letter to call upon the EU and its Member States to cancel the EU-Israel Association and to “hold Israel accountable for its persistent crimes and human rights violations”.
In the judgment Moerenhout and others v Commission, delivered on May 12, 2021, the General Court of the Court of Justice of the European Union (GCUE) ruled on a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) calling upon the European Commission to adopt measures to regulate trade with occupied territories. The Court found the Commission violated its obligation to…
Over one hundred local, regional and international civil society organizations have signed an open letter in solidarity with Palestinians, condemning Deutsche Welle’s (DW) inaccurate and defamatory report, calling for the retraction of the accusations and demanding the protection of the right to Palestinian freedom of speech.
This executive summary of the legal opinion published by the ELSC outlines how the ‘anti-BDS motion’ adopted by the Vienna City Council on 27 June 2018, and currently invoked in a lawsuit against BDS activist, infringes on the fundamental rights of freedoms of expression, association and assembly.
The ELSC joined more than 100 organisations, groups and unions to ask the EU to take strong actions against the unfounded designation of six Palestinian human rights organisations as “terrorist”.
For many years now, politically-motivated actors have used legal fora to inflict damage on civil society organizations supporting Palestinian rights, by attempting to silence them and delegitimise their work. These attacks, generally referred to as “lawfare”, are mostly conducted by disinformation groups supporting Israel’s occupation and apartheid regime, such as: NGO Monitor, Regavim, Shurat HaDin, International Legal Forum, Lawfare Project, and UK Lawyers For Israel (UKLFI).
Nearly two dozen rights groups, including the European Legal Support Center (ELSC) and our partner 7amleh, have joined together to tell PayPal and its subsidiary Venmo to shape up its policies on account freezes and closures.
On Friday 9 April, the Israeli Products Centre (IPC) based in Nijkerk, The Netherlands, received a fine of €2100 from the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) for mislabeling products originating in from Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). The ELSC previously assisted the Dutch group docP who led a campaign for the IPC to correctly label products from the oPt, when they received a letter threatening legal action for their advocacy efforts. We welcome the decision of the NVWA as important signal showing that activists work for the respect of international law cannot be restricted by threats of legal action aimed at silencing Palestinian advocacy.
ELSC Programme Director featured in a documentary on the repression of advocates for Palestinian rights and the weaponisation of antisemitism in Germany
