Public positions, opinions, or reactions from ELSC.
Seven rights groups, including the ELSC, have condemned the UK Government’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a dangerous attack on the right to protest. Hours after receiving a joint letter urging restraint, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper moved forward with the ban—further criminalising Palestine solidarity and deflecting from the UK’s obligations under international law.
A coalition of organizations has announced their withdrawal from the Independent Inquiry into Antisemitism at Goldsmiths, citing concerns over its exclusionary approach towards Palestinians and those who critique Israeli policies. The statement highlights issues such as a lack of transparency, incoherent responses from the College and Inquiry Chair, and the refusal to consider the impact of the Inquiry’s process on Palestinian and other minoritized groups. The decision underscores broader concerns about the misuse of antisemitism allegations to silence Palestinian voices and suppress academic freedom.
In November 2024, the Vienna Administrative Court ruled on a complaint against the Vienna Police concerning the dissolution of the Palestine Solidarity Encampment Vienna at the University of Vienna on 8 May 2024, and declared the measures taken by the police to be unlawful and unconstitutional. The Palestine Solidarity Encampment had been set up on…
We at the European Legal Support Center (ELSC) stand in solidarity with the people in Amsterdam standing up against the genocide perpetrators, supporters, and vicious police force unleashed on our streets over the past weeks.
The ELSC stands in solidarity with, and endorses the principled demands of, student protestors in Europe to disclose, divest and cut all ties with Israeli universities, corporations and all those complicit in the state of Israel’s crimes of genocide, colonisation, occupation and apartheid against Palestinians. We have seen among the most extreme police violence against…
Ongoing Nakba, Ongoing Genocide For more than 76 years, the Israeli colonial-apartheid regime has maintained its system of domination and oppression through a strategy that is based on three pillars: forced displacement and transfer, colonization and apartheid. This regime consists of a plethora of policies, practices, and laws that result in the creation, sustainment, and…
n light of the heinous actions of the State of Israel against the Palestinian people, and the extension of its oppressive structures onto Palestinians and their supporters in Europe, the ELSC expresses its unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation and justice against colonial oppression and apartheid.
In another act of state repression, the Berlin police banned all events commemorating 75 years of ongoing Nakba. Following the demonstration ban from 2022, the police disrupted a Palestinian cultural event on 13 May in Neukölln, banning any political public speech, attempting to stop the distribution of books on Palestine on a discretionary basis, and preventing attendees from dancing the traditional Dabka, claiming that it was a form of “political expression”. One of the banned speeches was to be delivered by a member of the ELSC and a partner scholar, Anna Younes (PhD), with the purpose of informing people on their legal rights. Other events that were banned were scheduled for 13, 14 and 20 May 2023: these demonstrations wanted to demand justice for the Palestinian people by remembering the displacement and ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the course of the founding of the state of Israel. At least 11 demonstrations on Nakba have been banned in Berlin since April 2022.
The ELSC signed this joint statement initiated by Al-Haq at the occasion of the commemoration of 75 years after Nakba in Palestine.
On International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, we joined a statement along with more than 90 organisations. The statement, initiated by Palestinian human rights organisation Addameer, shows support to Palestinian political prisoners and civil society and demands an end to the Israeli occupation authorities’ arbitrary policies.
ELSC will be back on Twitter soon!
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The ELSC signed a joint statement with other organisations in the UK to condemn the dismissal of NUS Shaima Dallali.
7amleh, along with 73 of local, regional and international partners – including the ELSC – has issued a joint statement regarding BSR’s Human Rights Due Diligence report on Arabic and Hebrew content on Meta’s platform. Human rights organizations and civil society have been calling for an independent review of Meta’s content moderation policies as they pertain to Palestine for years, so we commend the publication of this report.
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”.
We call for immediate release and demand Israel rescind the decision to revoke his Jerusalem residency based on “secret evidence.”
The ELSC joined over 150 organisations to condemn the raids and closures of 7 prominent Palestinian organisations and urge the international community to take effective measures.
Last week, the ELSC sent a letter to UN Special Rapporteurs on contemporary forms of racism, on freedom of opinion and expression, and on freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, following its previous communication alerting on urgent threats to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly in Berlin ahead of Nakba day.
The UK government is proposing an ‘anti-boycott bill’ that, if passed, could dramatically affect the ability of individuals and organisations to campaign for social and climate justice in the UK and around the world.
The ELSC took part in a initiative led by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) to ask key EU institutions and Member States to uphold the rule of international law and human rights for Palestinians at the 49th session of the UN Human Rights Council. Read the press release of the CIHRS below.
On January 20, Germany’s Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig confirmed that the City of Munich had violated the right to freedom of expression by denying the use of its conference hall solely because it did not like the particular theme of the planned event. The Court instructed the City to provide its hall for a public debate of Munich’s anti-BDS resolution. The ELSC commends the judges of Germany’s highest administrative court for this principled decision, which represents yet another milestone in efforts to put an end to Germany’s unethical and unlawful anti-BDS resolutions.
The student activist group, Free Palestine Maastricht, dedicated to building solidarity and awareness on the Palestinian cause is targeted in an escalating unfounded smear campaign initiated by a student at Maastricht University. The ELSC has been providing the group with legal support. In the statement below, Free Palestine Maastricht asserts its right to advocate for Palestinian rights and calls upon Maastricht University to protect students’ fundamental rights of freedom of expression, assembly, and association.
Along with 59 other civil society organisations from all around the world, we asked the Dutch government to resume its funding for UAWC and to reject Israel’s designation of Palestinian NGOs. Indeed, the Dutch decision to cut funding was baseless, and the Dutch government also failed to reject the Israeli designation whereas it was recognised as unsubstantiated.
strongly condemn the decision of the Dutch government to end its funding to the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC).
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”.
Today, the ELSC joined 31 Dutch organisations to call the Dutch governement to condemn the recent allegations against six prominent Palestinian NGOs.
The ELSC joined 234 organisations to express solidarity with Palestinian civil society and human rights defenders after the latest attempt from the Israeli governement to silence them. We collectively urge the international community to take all necessary measures to protect them.
On 22 October 2021, the Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz announced the official designation of six prominent Palestinian human rights and civil society organisations (CSOs) as “terrorist” organisations.
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).
The ELSC joined a global coalition of leaders from civil society to academia, art, media, business, politics, indigenous and faith communities, and people of conscience around the world– to call upon the States Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) to act decisively to put an end to Israel’s use of arms and military equipment…
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.
Yesterday, 10 European NGOs and networks sent an open letter to the European Commission to raise concern about the political instrumentalization of the fight against antisemitism. The ELSC is one of the signatories.
Repression and censorship have increased as mobilization and protests for Palestinian rights in Europe have grown in the past few weeks. In the UK, children in schools were reprimanded, suspended or even excluded for speaking up about Palestine or showing solidarity through symbols associated with Palestine like flags. The ELSC signed this joint statement along with British organizations to ask the government of the UK to end its repressive policies against activism in schools.
31 prominent human rights organisations, networks and trade unions from Palestine and Europe have submitted a report to the OHCHR demanding that CAF be included in the UN database of businesses involved in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise for its role in expanding and operating Israel’s Jerusalem Light Rail (JLR).
Along with 180 civil society coalitions and organisations, ELSC signed the Open Letter that was submitted to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, on 29 April. We express our strong support for the opening of an investigation into Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which was initiated by Bensouda in December.
