16 February 2006
A Front Line delegation, including Front Line’s Director, Mary Lawlor traveled to the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) from 8 February to 14 February to launch a report on the situation of human rights defenders in the region.
The report, which is written in conjunction with the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), examines killings, injury, arbitrary detention and arrest of human rights defenders over the past five years caused by both the Israeli military and by forces with links to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA)
The report recommends, among other things, that Israel stop treating human rights defenders as terrorists and lifts the regime of checkpoints, closures and curfews which has imposed a siege across the OPT and prevented defenders from carrying out their work.
It calls for the release of a number of human rights defenders including al Haq fieldworker Ziyad Hmeidan who has been held without charge by Israeli authorities since July 2005. 
