The Center organized a workshop on the lack of safety in the city of Nablus, a situation that spoils the atmosphere in the city and makes life very hard to bear, especially because of the lack of solutions. The Head of the Center, Mrs. Ghada Abdul Hadi, opened the workshop with a speech on the lack of security and its impact on the daily life in the economical and social aspects. She said "the chaos and the lack of safety in the city occupies the minds of its citizens, it makes them worried about their social life and their economy and it also negatively affects the national cause because it damages their image and their struggle". She called upon all the organizations and civic society associations to work together in order to get rid of this phenomena.
The Head of the Police Station in Nablus, Mr. Muhamad Issa, spoke about the collective responsibility in this crisis, referring to the lack of equipments and facilities. He spoke about the campaign that was launched a few months ago in order to control the security situation in the city, stressing on the role of the occupation in breaking this campaign, a campaign that was promising and gave hope to citizens. He also mentioned that one policeman was killed and some others were wounded by Israeli soldiers in one of their daily invasions of the city. He also encouraged citizens to solve their problems by the official channels -through the court and the police station- and not by means of armed groups.
Mr. Fayad Aghbar, the representative of the mayor of Nablus, talked about safety and security and their importance to citizens. He mentioned the injustice people feel, to the point of pushing some people to take the law by their hands. He said this is harmful to morality and called for an equal treatment to everybody in order to build justice. He also spoke about the necessity of launching a campaign to raise people’s awareness of their rights and to refuse chaos. Such a campaign could be organized at schools, universities, mosques and other associations. He also called for the political parties to control their members in order to put an end to this situation.
Mr. Ghassan Masri, Representative of the Governor, spoke about the Israeli occupation actions to frustrate the Palestinian Authority's attempts of controlling the situation in the city. Zuhair Dubie, Director of the Awqaf Department, spoke about a militarization of the Palestinian society that goes back to the first Intifada in 1989, when the range of participants became very narrow and limited to small groups of armed members, something that made the Intifada poorer. He recommended the cooperation between the government and the public and education departments in order to solve this problem. One of the citizens, Mr. Jameel Abdo, said that the Palestinian Authority is responsible for such an extreme situation, reminding of the good preparations the police officers and guards offered in terms of safety to the President when he visited Nablus during the elections campaign. He said those guards are ignoring their duty in protecting citizens. It deserves mentioning that student Fadel Askalan from the Faculty of Law made a presentation on the high number of victims who have fallen because of the lack of safety in the Palestinian Territories.
The workshop has been moderated by Dr. Ali Sartawi, Dean of the Faculty of Law, who spoke about the necessity of cooperation between all associations in order to find a solution to this situation. The citizens participating in the workshop expressed their unhappiness about the continuing chaos in the city, which affects its development. They demanded the Palestinian President, Mahmud Abbas, to visit the city and solve this hard crisis.
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