Palestinian human rights group deplores Swiss funding freeze
The Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) has spoken out against the recent suspension of Swiss aid to 11 Palestinian and Israeli NGOs.
“This is a dangerous decision,” said ICHR Director General Anmar al-Dwaik on Friday. “We are very worried” and “we are very disappointed” by this move by the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), he told correspondents accredited to the UN in Geneva. The ICHR itself receives funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), but is not affected by this decision.
+ Why Switzerland has frozen funding to 11 Middle East NGOs
The national human rights institution in Palestine also deplores the publication of the list of NGOs online by the Swiss authorities, before it was later withdrawn. These organisations, both Israeli and Palestinian, which work on the Palestinian question, have for several years been the victims of campaigns of denigration and restrictions by the Hebrew state,” says al-Dwaik. He called on Switzerland to reconsider this decision.
The ICHR is worried about its twenty or so staff in the Gaza Strip. Most of them have lost their homes and are among the nearly 1.5 million internally displaced persons. The organisation has lost track of some of them in recent days.
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