Ghassan
Abdallah
Director of the Palestinian Human Rights Organisation in Lebanon, Ghassan Abdallah has faced repeated airport searches, interrogations, and arbitrary detention in retaliation for his advocacy on behalf of Palestinian refugees.
- Country
- Lebanon
- Role
- NGO worker
- Arrested
- 15 May 2018
- Status
- Pre-trial · no verdict
- Status
- At liberty
- Arrested
- 15 May 2018
- Name in Arabic
- غسان عبد الله
The arrest, and what followed.
Background and Work
Ghassan Abdallah directs the Palestinian Human Rights Organisation, a Beirut-based member organisation of the International Federation for Human Rights. The organisation promotes and defends the rights of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, a population whose legal protections remain fragile and whose access to employment, property ownership, and social services is heavily restricted.
Abdallah holds dual Lebanese and Canadian nationality. He uses a prosthetic leg. These personal details became relevant when Lebanese security services began targeting him.
2018 Detention and Interrogation
On 14 May 2018, General Security summoned Abdallah to its central headquarters in Beirut. Officers questioned him about the activities he attended, the participants in those events, and the regional and international networks with which the Palestinian Human Rights Organisation is affiliated. They asked detailed questions about a visit he had made to the West Bank in 2013.
The following day, General Security transferred him to the military intelligence headquarters at El-Yarzeh. He was interrogated again on the same subjects. Officers presented him with a statement and demanded he sign an undertaking never to travel to the West Bank again. He refused.
He was held overnight at the military intelligence facility. On 16 May 2018, following a media campaign by the Palestinian Human Rights Organisation and intervention from several embassies, he was released without charge. The authorities offered no explanation for his detention.
2019 Summons
On 4 March 2019, Abdallah received a summons at his home to appear at General Security on 6 March 2019. No reason was given.
2022 Airport Harassment
On 12 May 2022, Abdallah arrived at Beirut airport to board a flight to Tunis, where he was scheduled to attend a human rights seminar organised by the International Federation for Human Rights. He presented his Canadian passport to the border control officer, who instructed him to go to the General Security office without providing a reason.
After a prolonged wait, security personnel conducted a thorough search of his belongings. He was eventually permitted to board the flight.
Four days later, on 16 May 2022, when he returned to Beirut from the seminar, General Security officers again summoned him to their airport office. They escorted him back to the border police area and searched him in front of other passengers. They ordered him to remove his prosthetic leg. He told them the practice was humiliating and that a scanner would suffice. They refused. No reason for the search was given.
Pattern of Retaliation
The repeated interrogations, the 2018 detention, and the degrading airport searches form a consistent pattern. The questioning returns to the same themes: Abdallah's attendance at international forums, the networks of which his organisation is a member, and his travel to the West Bank. No charges have ever been filed. The harassment serves to punish him for his work and to signal that his advocacy for Palestinian refugees is monitored and unwelcome.