Fighting for the right to vote for 50,000 Bedouin citizens

15/09/19

Netanyahu’s Likud party just filed an injunction with the Election Commission to stop our initiative to transport Bedouin citizens from unrecognized villages to the polls, and is seeking a restraining order for all Zazim activities up until the elections.

Since the second election date was set, we have been working nonstop against efforts to prevent Arab citizens from exercising their basic right to vote, and for equality for all citizens. The Likud's petition wants to silence our community, but even more so, they want to silence Arab citizens, including Bedouin in the unrecognized villages, who will not be able to vote without access to the remote polling stations.

In the past months, our community has been at the front lines in the fight against voter suppression. We defeated the undemocratic “cameras plan,” when the Election Commission banned the Likud and other parties from putting cameras in Arab polling stations. On Election Day, we will be operating a hotline in Arabic that will allow citizens to report any attempts of voter suppression. Finally, we are organizing a shuttle system for residents from the unrecognized Bedouin villages, without which they will simply have no way to get to the polls.

This is a fight for basic equality and democracy - and this is what the Likud is trying to prevent. During the April election date, the petition that the Likud and the far-right .organization Im Tirtzu filed against us was rejected, and we need to  ensure that .we win this time as well