News Archive

The Great March of Return, Israel’s Assault on Gaza & the Struggle for Justice in Palestine

 Date: Friday  8 June 2018, 5 pm.
Location: Seminar Room- Irish Centre for Human Rights, NUI Galway.

 Shawan Jabarin, Director General of the largest and oldest Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq, will address recent developments in Gaza: the remarkable mass movement that emerged in the form of the Great March of Return, and the response of the Israeli military – including the use of lethal force and explosive bullets against civilians, as well as rules of engagement allowing the use of lethal force. Jabarin will also address the diverse range of ongoing attempts to hold Israel to account for its violations of international law in the Palestinian territories – from potential war crimes investigations by the International Criminal Court to forthcoming proposed legislation in Ireland to ban trade with illegal settlements in occupied territories. According to Prof. Ray Murphy of the Irish Centre for Human Rights, Shawan Jabarin is amongst the most pre-eminent of Palestinian human rights defenders and most qualified to speak about the ongoing oppression and human rights violations of the Palestinian people. 

In 2011 Jabarin was appointed to the Human Rights Watch Middle East Advisory Board, and in 2013 he was elected as a Commissioner for the International Commission of Jurists. In 2016 he was elected Secretary-General of FIDH: International Federation of Human Rights.

After studying sociology at Birzeit University in the 1980s, Jabarin later studied human rights law at Irish Centre of Human Rights, NUI Galway, where he completed the LL.M programme in 2004-05, supported by a grant from the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Irish Aid programme. In 2010, the Irish Centre of Human Rights presented him with its first and only distinguished graduate award.

He has been subject to administrative detention without trial, travel bans and death threats for his work as a human rights defender, and has been supported in campaigns by Amnesty International, Front Line Defenders, Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem, and others. He was awarded the Reebok Human Rights Award in 1990 for his defence of freedom of expression and human rights, and has received numerous other human rights awards.

All Welcome!

Website:    www.nuigalway.ie/human_rights/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/IrishCentreHR
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IrishHumanRights