Jabārīn, Shaʻwān

Shawan Rateb Abdallah Jabarin (born 1960 in Sa'ir, West Bank) is the general director of Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights organization in the West Bank. From 2005 to 2009, Jabarin was a member of the board of directors of Defense for Children International – Palestine, the national section of the Geneva-based Defense for Children International, a non-governmental organization (NGO) established in 1979. Respected as a human-rights activist by Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International, and various Palestinian human-rights groups, and condemned by many Israeli and other organizations, Jabarin has been described as "an activist to some, a terrorist to others." He has won multiple human-rights awards and contributed to such journals as Foreign Policy. Israel's Supreme Court has described him as a "senior activist" for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Jabarin has been barred from entering Jordan on security grounds, and was banned from international travel by Israel between 2006 and 2013.