Free Stop the Wall activist Hassan Karajah!

In the early hours of 23rd January 2013, the Israeli army arrested Hassan Yasser Karajeh, a 29 years old Palestinian youth activist in the Stop the Wall Campaign, violently breaking into his home in the West Bank village of Safa, west of Ramallah. He has been detained since.

The arrest comes as Palestinian popular resistance against the onslaught of Israeli settlement construction and expulsion of Palestinian communities is gathering pace.

Hassan Karajeh is youth coordinator of Stop the Wall, a coalition of Palestinian NGOs and popular committees that mobilizes and coordinates efforts aimed at stopping and dismantling the wall erected by the state of Israel along and within the West Bank, and resisting Israeli occupation and colonization. Friends of the Earth Palestine (PENGON) is member of the coalition.

Hassan is a young human rights activist, well-known both at the local level and across the Arab world. He served as youth ambassador for Palestine at the Arab Thought Forum and has represented various Palestinian organisations at international conferences and seminars.

Stop the Wall calls on all human rights organizations, international solidarity movements and human rights defenders to support them in mounting a powerful and effective campaign for the release of Hassan Karajah. Specifically, the coalition urges you to

• use your government’s influence to pressure the Israeli authorities for the immediate and unconditional release of Hassan Karajeh and to seek assurances from Israeli authorities that his rights as a detainee will be fully respected for as long as he remains in custody;
• ensure consular representatives are following the case of Hassan Karajah;
• raise the case of Hassan Karajah and the issue of Israeli repression of Palestinian human rights defenders at the upcoming EU Foreign Affairs Councils.