Enhancing Awareness, Supporting and Advocating for the Rights of its Indigenous Population
The Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem (CCPRJ) was established in 2005.
The CCPRJ’s mission is to mobilize efforts, capacities and resources of Palestinian civil society in order to protect the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of Palestinians in Jerusalem as enshrined in international human rights and humanitarian law.
Palestinians in Occupied East Jerusalem have been consistently exposed to remarkable hardships since Israel’s illegal annexation of the city in 1967. From this time forward, Israel has enforced a series of policies that collectively work to reduce Jerusalem’s Palestinian population, both through the deliberate destruction of quality of life for residents, as well as the imposition of measures designed to prevent the return of Jerusalemites living outside the city’s bounds. This aim is indicated explicitly within the Jerusalem municipality’s Local Development Plan 2000 – a master plan outlining the city’s development goals until the year 2020 – which states a goal to establish and preserve a “demographic balance” of 70% Jewish residents to 30% Palestinian . Ultimately, aiming to de-populate Jerusalem of its indigenous Palestinian residents, therefore further claiming Israeli full sovereignty on the city.
Legal aid: The CCPRJ works with Palestinian, Israeli and International lawyers, to provide legal aid to local communities to support them as they face diverse legal challenges and cases in the Israeli courts and Planning Committees and Institutions. Providing legal support actively provides clients with legal support that allows them to be assisted and well informed about decisions as they face the Israeli system;
