The family of Palestinian activist Nizar Banat, who died in Palestinian custody in June, stepped up its quest for international justice on Thursday, turning to British police and the UN.
Banat — a leading critic of the Palestinian Authority and its 86-year-old president, Mahmud Abbas — died after security forces stormed his home in the flashpoint city of Hebron and dragged him away.
A postmortem found he had been beaten on the head, chest, neck, legs and hands, with less than an hour elapsing between his arrest and his death.
Banat's family has said it has no confidence in the PA's capacity to deliver justice and called for an international probe.
A statement from the family's lawyers, the British firm Stoke White, said they have asked Britain's Metropolitan Police to open an investigation under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
For a small number of serious offences, Britain's courts can hear cases even if the alleged crimes were committed abroad.
Stoke White also said it had asked multiple branches of the UN human rights system to open an investigation, including the Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions and four special rapporteurs.
Ghasan Khalil Banat said his brother's “murder” was a “tragedy for our family, but also a tragedy for the Palestinian people".
“The so-called investigation that was carried out into his murder is an embarrassment and the PA should feel ashamed of it,” he said in the statement.
The head of international law at Stoke White, Hakan Camuz, said: “Responsibility for the murder of Nizar
t very clearly lies with the senior leadership of the Palestinian Authority, including President Mahmud Abbas and Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh.”
Mr Shtayyeh and the PA have promised accountability over Banat's death, but Mr Camuz accused the PA of a long-standing bid to silence dissent.
“They cannot be allowed to get away with this and this is why we are submitting these complaints and petitions to the British police and the UN,” he said in the statement.
The UN and the EU this week raised the alarm over a spate of arrests of activists since Banat's death, saying that the PA appeared to be cracking down on basic freedoms across the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
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A widely accepted definition was made by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims in 2019: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” It further defines it as “inciting hatred or violence against Muslims”.
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TEACHERS' PAY - WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Pay varies significantly depending on the school, its rating and the curriculum. Here's a rough guide as of January 2021:
- top end schools tend to pay Dh16,000-17,000 a month - plus a monthly housing allowance of up to Dh6,000. These tend to be British curriculum schools rated 'outstanding' or 'very good', followed by American schools
- average salary across curriculums and skill levels is about Dh10,000, recruiters say
- it is becoming more common for schools to provide accommodation, sometimes in an apartment block with other teachers, rather than hand teachers a cash housing allowance
- some strong performing schools have cut back on salaries since the pandemic began, sometimes offering Dh16,000 including the housing allowance, which reflects the slump in rental costs, and sheer demand for jobs
- maths and science teachers are most in demand and some schools will pay up to Dh3,000 more than other teachers in recognition of their technical skills
- at the other end of the market, teachers in some Indian schools, where fees are lower and competition among applicants is intense, can be paid as low as Dh3,000 per month
- in Indian schools, it has also become common for teachers to share residential accommodation, living in a block with colleagues
