{"id":1371,"date":"2006-04-01T01:37:27","date_gmt":"2006-04-01T05:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/wordpress\/?p=1371"},"modified":"2006-04-01T01:37:27","modified_gmt":"2006-04-01T05:37:27","slug":"award-winning-palestinian-human-rights-advocate-blocked-from-visiting-washington-dc-by-the-us-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=1371","title":{"rendered":"Award Winning Palestinian human rights advocate blocked from visiting Washington, DC by the US Administration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>RFK Memorial calls on members of the media and human rights community to ask State Department officials how this could happen<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Washington, DC &#8211; 1991 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award winner, Palestinian human rights lawyer Raji Sourani, has been stuck in Gaza despite plans to meet numerous U.S. officials from March 24th -30th. The United States Department of State has not granted Sourani a travel visa to the US though he has confirmed meetings with high-ranking officials at the Department of State, the National Security Council, an advisor to President Bush, The International Republican Institute, and The Heritage Foundation. In a letter addressed to Sourani, the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem required him ?to obtain an Israeli police certificate? before his application could move further.<\/p>\n<p>?International law is not a potluck dinner, the U.S. can?t simply pick and choose when to apply it and when to ignore it,? said Todd Howland, Director of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights whose organization was facilitating Sourani?s visit. Howland went on to say, ?on one hand the US government asks a Palestinian wanting to visit the U.S. to obtain a police certificate from Israel, a country that international law holds is illegally occupying its territory. On the other hand, the U.S. government does not address the fact that Israel has obligations, regardless of the legitimacy of the occupation, to the health and welfare of those living in Gaza based on the Fourth Geneva Convention &#8211; obligations its present closure of the border crossings contradict.? <\/p>\n<p>UN Security Council Resolution 242 (S\/RES\/242), unanimously adopted on 22 November 1967 by all members of the Security Council, including the US, called for the ?withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.? ?Forcing a Palestinian to obtain a police clearance from an occupier who was instructed to withdraw over 35 years ago is absurd,? added Howland.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rfkmemorial.org\/legacyinaction\/1991_Raji_visa\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RFK Memorial calls on members of the media and human rights community to ask State Department officials how this could happen Washington, DC &#8211; 1991 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award winner, Palestinian human rights lawyer Raji Sourani, has been &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=1371\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-m7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}