With an indicted Prime Minister awaiting trial, four rounds of elections in under two years, and the better part of a year in and out of lockdowns, ACRI had added impetus to continue improving lives, exposing human rights violations, and setting precedents throughout 2020.
No one was prepared for the tremendous loss of life and welfare that COVID-19 is causing worldwide. The resulting health- and movement-related restrictions that followed in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), which began in earnest with the closure of the Israeli school system, economy, and most crossings between Israel and the OPT, took effect on 13th March, 2020. Within a week, ACRI was in the High Court of Justice.
The response of the Israeli government and elected leadership to the related health, economic, and political crises, have only exacerbated threats to Israeli democracy, compromising the basic dignity and civil liberties of the country’s most vulnerable communities (including citizens, residents, minorities, migrants, status-less people, and Palestinians in the OPT).
This report demonstrates how ACRI, with a staff in quarantine and largely working from home, succeeded in issuing 16 COVID-related legal proceedings to the High Court of Justice and lower courts, appealed over 200 times to public officials, and advanced dozens of human rights legal issues and petitions preceding the health crisis over the course of the year.
During this ongoing time of crisis, ACRI’s work touched upon every demographic and prevented a deterioration in the social fabric in our society. To read the full report, click here