Palestine National Council (PNC) called on the parliaments of the world to protect Palestinian democracy from the arbitrary measures of the Israeli occupation that violate international law and international human rights charters.
PNC urged parliaments to exert pressure on the Israeli occupation to enable Jerusalemites to exercise their Palestinian electoral right to nominate and vote in their occupied city, Jerusalem, and not to allow Israel to deprive them from this constitutional and legal right.
In a statement addressed today to a number of parliaments and parliamentary unions around the world, PNC indicated that Israel has not yet given approval for elections in the occupied city of Jerusalem, nor has it agreed to grant visas to international monitoring missions to enter the lands of the State of Palestine under the Israeli military occupation.
PNC indicated that the occupation authorities began to interfere in the Palestinian elections by using force to prevent electoral meetings for Jerusalemites, as happened in the Ambassador Hotel in occupied Jerusalem, as well as arresting a number of candidates on the lists approved by the Palestinian Central Elections Commission.
In its statement, PNC demanded to interpret the goals and principles of democracy, into rejection of all occupation measures that hinder the electoral process in Palestine, so that Palestinian democracy would not be held hostage by the Israeli occupation.
PNC called on parliaments to invest parliamentary diplomacy and to use the tools of pressure through their governments to remove the obstacles that the Israeli occupation is trying to impose to prevent elections in the city of Jerusalem, and to oblige Israel to implement the agreements and protocols on the basis of which the elections were executed during the years: 1996, 2005 and 2006.
PNC affirmed its keenness to execute elections on 22nd of May 2021 as a democratic entitlement in full freedom and transparency, but with ensuring the participation of Jerusalemites as candidates and voters in the city of Jerusalem, which is considered a Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 and is the capital of the Palestinian state in accordance with international law and United Nations resolutions.