Khalida Jarrar, elected member of the Palestinian parliament, feminist, and board member of the Palestinian Prisoner Rights organization, ADDAMEER, met our Canadian delegation in November 2014. Two days ago, she was arrested by the IDF for defying a military order to remain in Jericho. A defense campaign has been launched. Learn more.

On April 2nd, Israeli soldiers arrested Khalida Jarrar, a Palestinian legislator, for violating an Israeli military edict forbidding her from leaving the West Bank town of Jericho. An international petition is demanding her release.

Jarrar was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council (or “Parliament”) in 2006. She is a prominent Palestinian politician, and active in the defense of human rights.

An effective speaker, and fluent in English, Jarrar has been denied her right to travel outside the country since 1998. As of last August, Israel increased its pressure by trying to confine her to Jericho, thus denying her right to even travel to Ramallah or to other cities in the West Bank. However, she resisted the order – even setting up a tent outside the Palestinian legislative Council building.

We met her briefly in Ramallah in November, and she explained to us how Israel is limiting her freedom of action.

[youtube http://youtu.be/-OqsV1CN9k8″>http://youtu.be/-OqsV1CN9k8%5D

After attending a successful UN meeting in Paris, she has been denied her right to travel abroad and confined to the West Bank for for “security’ reasons. Her confinement has now been further tightened, restricting her to one city in the West Bank – Jericho.

More information is available about her arrest from Samidoun, the Palestinian Prisoner Support network.

In democratic countries, the arrest of a parliamentarian is a very unusual event. Jarrar’s arrest now brings to 16, the number of Palestinian parliamentarians who are held in Israeli jails. A petition has been launched to demand her release.