Pal-Think's Civic Education Forum holds awareness meetings on human rights, democracy and the Palestinian electoral system

The civic-education forum, supervised by Pal-Think for Strategic Studies, carried out meetings targeting male and female students of the Palestinian universities in the Gaza Strip, during which there was talk on human rights, democracy, the electoral process in the Palestinian condition, and the importance of political participation.

This comes within the project “Civic Education”, funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), implemented by Pal-Think for Strategic Studies.

The first meeting was titled “The stages of the electoral process”, led by the student Aya Ashour and the student Rawan al-Khatib at the Educational Forum Association in the city of Nuseirat. During the meeting there was talk on the definition of the electoral process and its importance in strengthening the principles of democracy and good governance; then there was talk on the different stages of the electoral process, setting out the details of each of these stages. During the meeting the necessity of updating voters' data and the necessity of taking part in all the stages of the electoral process were likewise affirmed.

As for the second meeting, it was titled “Concepts around human rights”, led by the student Osama Naim at the Ataa Charitable Association, during which he spoke on the local and international concept of human rights, the stages of this concept's development, the characteristics of human rights, and the importance of applying the concepts of human rights in the various fields; he likewise spoke on the divisions of human rights and the most important international treaties and covenants concerning human rights.

As for the third meeting, it was titled “Democracy and the Palestinian elections system”, led by the student Haneen Lulu and the student Fares. During it there was talk on the concept of democracy as the people's right of choice, setting out the stages of its development, its philosophical foundation, the principles of strengthening democracy under the frame of protecting the law and communal interests without discrimination, and the stages and procedures of the course of the electoral process in the Palestinian condition.

It is recalled that the facilitators of the awareness meetings are a group of male and female university students who were trained by Pal-Think within an intensive training programme that continued for two consecutive weeks, during which the focus was on the issues of democracy, human rights, the system of government in Palestine, the principles of integrity and transparency, and gender-based violence.