Ref:
19/2010

On Tuesday, 16 February 2010, the
Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) received Dr. Thomas Neu, Director of
the Carter Center, and Sophie Khan, Field Office Representative, in PCHR’s
office in Gaza City.

Members of the delegation met with
Jaber Weshah, Deputy Director of PCHR, and Hamdi Shaqoura, Deputy Director of
PCHR for Program Affairs. The meeting
focused on the issue of Palestinian elections and the chances of conducting
them. PCHR’s representatives explained PCHR’s view on conducting the
Palestinian elections and confirmed PCHR’s full support for holding elections,
but only under an appropriate atmosphere
so as to ensure conducting transparent elections that represent the Palestinian
electorate’s will.

PCHR’s representatives indicated
that the current situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) under
the ongoing political division does not give a chance to conduct transparent
elections. They further pointed out that
violations of human rights and public liberties resulted from the political
division precludes conducting the elections. They also emphasized that the two Palestinian governments in Gaza and
Ramallah are required to end the fragmentation and to take serious measures at
the level of public liberties so as to conduct the elections.

The meeting also discussed the
previous experience of the Palestinian Legislative Elections, which were
conducted in 2006, in addition to the Palestinian situation following those
elections and the international boycott of their results. PCHR criticized the dual standard treatment
of the international community, condemned the boycott of the Palestinian
elections’ results as the whole world witnessed their transparency, while
figures representing extremism and racism like, Lieberman, are welcomed in the
western countries.

PCHR’s representatives confirmed
also that the international boycott has harmed the Palestinian civilian
population only. They clarified that
fighting “extremism,” which is being marketed as an excuse for this
boycott, is not acceptable at all, because the siege and boycott mean more
poverty, unemployment and isolation, which is an appropriate environment for
the emergence of “extremism.”