PBI-Nederland has published this article about Shelter City Utrecht and Palestinian human rights defender Badee Dwaik.
Shelter City Utrecht
They explain: “Shelter City Utrecht is a project that provides a temporary safe haven for human rights defenders who are at risk in their country of origin. Peace Brigades International – in collaboration with Justice & Peace – receives human rights defenders for periods of three months. During these three months, the human rights defenders rest and recover but they also build their network, learn new skills, and raise awareness about human rights issues.”
Two days ago, PBI-Nederland also posted on social media: “Yesterday we celebrated the tenth anniversary of our Shelter City Utrecht project at the city hall in Utrecht. What a great milestone, and what a beautiful event! Together with our partners, we looked back on everything we have achieved over the past ten years. Since the start of the project, we have already been able to offer 34 human rights defenders from 20 different countries a safe haven in beautiful Utrecht!”
Badee Dwaik
PBI-Nederland further notes: “Current Palestinian Shelter City guest Badee Dwaik recited a beautiful poem written by him.”
Front Line Defenders tells us more about him:
“Badee Dweik is a human rights defender who organises campaigns for the protection of human rights defenders in Hebron and calls for an end to Israeli occupation. The human rights defender has established many NGOs that organise peaceful actions calling for the Palestinian right to self-determination. He is a leading member of Human Rights Defenders in Palestine. Badee Dweik also collaborates with the Hebron team of human rights observers brought by the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel. His work involves documenting and providing information on violations committed against Palestinians. He also provides training on protection for human rights defenders, particularly in the Hebron governorate.”
On June 23, 2025, Human Rights Defenders posted:
“Israeli occupation soldiers detained activist Badee Dwaik at the entrance of the Old City in Hebron. They searched him, abused him, and forced him to the ground. The Israeli occupation soldiers searched his mobile phone and deleted its contents after he attempted to document the soldiers’ detention of passersby, their prevention from entering the Old City, and the abuse they were subjected to.”
And almost ten years ago, the American Ethical Union also noted:
“[Badee is from] Al-Khalil (Hebron). Badee is the co-founder of Human Rights Defenders; a grassroots, anti-colonial organization on the front line of media justice in a context of militarized occupation. The Human Rights Defenders use their own video equipment to document IDF raids, attacks, and human rights abuses by soldiers and settlers so they can release these reports online for a global audience. Palestinian people in Al-Khalil live in an extremely high-tension urban context of apartheid with normalized military presence, checkpoints and close proximity to Israeli settlements. Badee is a media justice organizer and Palestinian father who is dedicated to the Palestinian people and an end to occupation of his traditional territories.”
You can read more from Badee Dwaik on Instagram here.
For more about his organization Human Rights Defenders تجمع المدافعين عن حقوق الانسان – فلسطين click here.
Prior to arriving in Utrecht, Dwaik gave this speech in Barcelona.
We continue to follow his work.
The ongoing call for an arms embargo
The Dublin-based organization Front Line Defenders (the International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders) has also documented the killing of at least 31 Palestinian human rights defenders in 2023 and 2024.
They recognize the actual numbers are higher. They explain: “In some regions and countries, including Palestine, the documentation of cases is highly challenging, if not virtually impossible.”
And they state that “those defending the right to health and the right to life as doctors, nurses, or ambulance workers, those exposing and documenting war crimes as journalists, and those providing humanitarian support as volunteers or employees of aid agencies were all specifically targeted by Israeli bombs or guns.”
UN experts have stated that “continuing to support Israel materially or politically, especially via arms transfers, and the provision of private military and security services risks complicity in genocide and other serious international crimes.”
Peace Brigades International-Canada continues to call on Prime Minister Mark Carney and the Canadian government to immediately suspend any transfers of weapons, ammunition and military components to Israel and to stop any military assistance or support that is likely to violate international humanitarian law.
