Approssimativamente alle 12:30 di oggi, quindi circa 5 ore e mezza dopo l'apertura dei seggi, il primo Palestinese è riuscito a votare presso l'ufficio postale del Jaffa Gate nella città vecchia di Gerusalemme Est a causa degli ostacoli e delle restrizioni imposte dall'occupazione militare israeliana.

[palsolidarity] First Vote at 12:30 at Jerusalem Center Due to Israeli Restrictions

Due to Israeli Restrictions First Palestinian Votes at 12:30 at
Jerusalem Polling Center

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 9, 2005

At approximately, 12:30 PM today, 5 ½ hours after the opening of
polling stations, the first Palestinian voter succeeded in casting a
ballot at the Jaffa Gate post office in the old city of East
Jerusalem. Israeli imposed obstacles to voting at the Jaffa Gate
polling station typify the problems Palestinians are experiencing as
they attempt to conduct democratic elections under Israeli
occupation. The Israeli government is attempting to limit
Palestinian voting in East Jerusalem in particular as part of an
attempt to deny Palestinian rights and identity there.

Because of Israeli imposed conditions, only 6,000 of the 124,000
Palestinians from East Jerusalem who hold Israeli-issued Jerusalem
IDs are eligible to vote within East Jerusalem near their homes.
Those 6,000 must vote for their President in six Israeli government
controlled post offices. The remaining 118,000 East Jerusalem
residents must travel to surrounding towns and villages to vote,
often passing through Israeli checkpoints or around Israel's
Apartheid Wall.

Only 4.8% of East Jerusalemites will actually find their names on
the East Jerusalem voting lists at the six Israeli post offices near
their homes. The vast majority are being turned away and told to
travel on to the surrounding towns and villages to vote. The Jaffa
Gate post office seems to represent an extreme example of this
problem. By 12:30 PM, ISM volunteers were told by an Israeli post
office employee there that only one of approximately 40 Palestinians
who came to vote there had been allowed to vote so far. Similarly,
ISM volunteers have been told that only 34 few East Jerusalemites
succeeded in voting at the Israeli post office in Shufat, and 56
voted in Beit Hanina so far.

On top of restricting the vote to 4.8% of the eligible Palestinian
population in East Jerusalem, Israeli authorities have imposed
numerous other constraints on East Jerusalem residents' right to
vote. The requirement that Palestinians cast ballots in Israeli
post offices allows Israeli authorities to maintain a façade that
Jerusalem residents are casting absentee ballots, and mailing their
votes back to their homeland.

During visits to voters' homes over the last week in East Jerusalem,
a number of Palestinians explained to ISM volunteers that voting in
Israeli post offices is intimidating and will reduce turnout. They
fear Israeli authorities will take the list of voters, and, as a
punishment for voting in a Palestinian election, strip voters of
their Israeli-issued Jerusalem identification card and their right
to live in Jerusalem, and of the benefits that they have paid for
through taxes to the Israeli government.

Already worried about voting in Israeli post offices, East
Jerusalemites also fear traveling to vote in the towns and villages
outside of East Jerusalem. Israeli authorities could claim that as
evidence that they are not residents of Jerusalem, and strip them of
their Jerusalem IDs and their rights and benefits.

Other major violations in East Jerusalem include Israeli
restrictions on registering voters and campaigning in East
Jerusalem. Israeli authorities closed down Palestinian voter
registration centers in East Jerusalem. While they eventually
allowed door-to-door registration, staff conducting the registration
told ISM volunteers that they were prohibited from carrying any
documents identifying them with the Palestinian Central election
Commission, and from displaying the Palestinian flag or colors.
Israeli authorities have also limited the posting of candidate and
voter education posters to a few designated public locations.
Presidential candidates have also been arrested and harassed by
Israeli police on the few occasions when they attempted to campaign
in East Jerusalem.

The Israeli government's effort to deny Palestinians' right to vote
in East Jerusalem serves as one example of the impossibility of
conducting free and fair elections under Israeli military occupation.

For More Information:

ISM Media: 054-6-253-451 and 059-676-782

www.palsolidarity.org