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| The office of Al-Haq, adjacent to the St Andrew’s church, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on 18 August 2022. Photograph: Nasser Nasser/AP |
This Palestinian human rights group was sanctioned by Trump. Its chief wishes US allies would take a stand
Al-Haq, a leading Palestinian human rights organization based in the West Bank, is not new to adversity. But since the group was sanctioned by the Trump administration in September, its world has shrunk.
Today, staff work without pay because their banks closed their accounts. US-based funders have pulled away. YouTube has pulled hundreds of the group’s videos documenting Israeli forces’ human rights abuses against Palestinians. Perhaps most upsetting, US-based groups that had long collaborated have gone quiet, fearful that communications with Al-Haq may draw the attention of an administration that has made clear they are a target.
“I feel a deep, deep pain in my heart,” said Shawan Jabarin, Al-Haq’s director, of the silence from US-based organizations in the human rights and social justice sector. “Most of them – if not all – they stopped working with us or engaging with us formally and openly.”
Speaking to the Guardian, Jabarin called on US-based rights groups to take a more defiant stance against the Trump administration. “Standing on the side of human rights and justice doesn’t mean that you have to respect draconian orders or laws,” he said. “You have to fight back with all means.”
The Trump administration announced sanctions against Al-Haq over the group’s support for investigation of Israeli crimes in Palestine by the international criminal court (ICC). The sanctions marked an early strike in a broader campaign against civil society, a campaign disproportionately focused on groups championing Palestinian rights that also threatens to sweep up climate, democracy and racial justice groups... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/13/al-haq-sanctioned-palestinian-rights-group-trump?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other