Amnesty International to Israel :”scrap plans to forcibly evict Bedouin”

Posted April 20, 2013 at 03:51PM

Amnesty Internation in a press statement has said Israel needs to “scrap plans to forcibly evict Bedouin”. They have said  “Israel’s new government must drop a proposed law that would lead to mass forced evictions of Bedouin people and instead pursue legislation to protect Bedouin housing rights, Amnesty International said, as the Ministerial Committee on Legislation is due to consider the proposal on Sunday.”

The draft “Law for Regularizing Bedouin Habitation in the Negev – 2012”, approved by the previous government, threatens at least 30,000 Bedouin in the country’s southern Negev desert. Israel has never officially recognized the Bedouins in the Negev.

Ann Harrison, Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director at Amnesty International said “Forcibly evicting tens of thousands of Bedouin from communities where they have lived for generations cannot be justified in the name of economic development or any other reason – Israel’s new leaders must have the courage to venture where previous governments have ignored human rights standards,What the proposed law does is send the Bedouin communities into a human rights desert by stripping already vulnerable citizens of legal safeguards against house demolitions and forced evictions. This blatantly violates international law”.