ACAT- L'ONG Chrétienne Contre La Torture Et La Peine De Mort

Activities

• Operates in approximately 40 countries worldwide.
• Claims to raise awareness and advocate for Palestinian prisoners and against administrative detention.

Political Advocacy

• In November 2021, ACAT was a signatory on a letter to the French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs condemning the decision by the Israeli Ministry to designate six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. According to the letter, “Among the signatories of this letter, many of us work very regularly with these organizations… We call on you to condemn this unprecedented attack on Palestinian civil society, which de facto criminalizes human rights defenders in Palestine, and to use all your resources to get the Israeli government to reverse this decision.”
• In October 2021, ACAT called for people to “mobilize to prevent the expulsion of Salah Hamouri.” According to ACAT, Hamouri is a “victim of a war crime.”
  • In 2005, Salah Hamouri was arrested and convicted for “attempting to assassinate Ovadia Yosef…and for his involvement with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.” The PFLP has referred to Hamouri as a “comrade.” Hamouri works as a field researcher and lawyer for the Palestinian NGO Addameer, an “affiliate” of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist group.
• In March 2020, ACAT was a signatory on a call to coordinate Israeli Apartheid Week events in order to “raise public awareness of Israel’s system of apartheid.”
• In November 2019, ACAT helped organize a protest against the International Criminal Court (ICC) calling to investigate “the crimes of the apartheid regime.”
• In May 2018, ACAT signed on a call to the UN Human Rights Council to launch an “independent investigation into violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by Israel” in response to Gaza-border violence. The call accuses Israel of “excessive, indiscriminate and disproportionate use of lethal force… [that]  may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity” (emphasis added). The call ignored the violent nature of the protests, which have consisted of an organized armed attack on the Israeli border and IDF positions, attempts to destroy and breach the border fence, and sustained arson, rocket, and mortar attacks on Israeli civilian communities.
• In 2015, ACAT, along with Addameer, Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), The Plateform, L’Association France Palestine Solidarité (AFPS), and La Ligue des droits de l’Homme (LDH), created a documentary titled Palestine: La case prison. The documentary repeated blatantly false propaganda claims, such as, “In the name of its security, Israel uses prisons as a tool of oppression/ repression aiming at controlling the Palestinian society. Since 1967, more than 850 000 Palestinians have been jailed by Israeli authorities, 20% of the total population and 40% of the masculine population.”
• In 2015, ACAT advocated for Palestinians prisoners by arranging for representatives of the Paris Bar, Parliamentarians, and Senators to meet Shawan Jabarin. Jabarin also addressed a group of French Parliamentarians during a documentary presentation at the French National Assembly.
  • Al-Haq General Director Shawan Jabarin is tied to the PFLP. As a result, his requests for Israeli exit visas have been denied on several occasions, and he has been denied entry by Jordan.  In a series of court cases in 2007-2009, the Israeli High Court of Justice found Jabarin to be a senior PFLP activist (2007, 2008, 2009).
• Partnered with the Palestinian NGO Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights and the politicized photographers organization Activestills in the creation of a web documentary titled “Obliterated Families.”
  • A number of Al-Mezan officials and employees have links to the PFLP and Hamas. Additionally, Al-Mezan officials and board members speak at PFLP events, and many have posted material on their social media accounts promoting terror groups or utilizing antisemitic imagery and rhetoric. For more information on Al Mezan’s PFLP ties, read NGO Monitor’s report “Al Mezan Center For Human Rights’ Ties to the PFLP Terror Group.”
• ACAT refers to a number of Israeli airstrikes during the 2014 Gaza was as having “no military necessity,” regardless of the fact that ACAT lacks the military, legal, and forensic expertise necessary to determine whether a target was within the parameters of international law.
• ACAT refers to the IDF as the “colonial police” and falsely states that “children are treated as adults” when arrested for alleged crimes (such as stone throwing). In fact, Israel has a distinct “Juvenile Military Court” among other efforts on Israel’s part to increase child protection, even in cases where children have committed serious, life threatening crimes such as murder, violent assault, stabbing attempts, firebombing and stone throwing. Furthermore, in its discussion of arrests of Palestinian youth, ACAT references testimonies collected by Defense for Children International- Palestine (DCI-P), an NGO with alleged ties with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist group.