Dr Youssef Darwish

Palestine Expert — Human Rights, Political Situation & Asylum Cases

Expert at The Human Rights Experts, an international expert witness organisation.

We provide expert witness reports for asylum cases worldwide, covering human rights violations, political persecution, and systemic oppression. Our reports are trusted by lawyers, courts, and immigration authorities, in full compliance with procedural standards and tribunal requirements in the UK (CPR Part 35, Upper Tribunal PD, First-tier Tribunal IAC PD), USA (Federal Rules of Evidence), Canada, and the EU.

Occupation

• Country Witness Expert on Palestine, Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon
• Human Rights Specialist
• Legal Researcher and Academic Consultant
• Independent Journalist and Investigative Reporter on Human Rights

Expertise

I provide expert analysis on all five Refugee Convention grounds — political opinion, religion, ethnicity, membership of a particular social group (including LGBT and gender-based cases), and nationality — with a focus on the following countries:

Palestine: The Palestinian population lives under a fragmented governance structure in which Israeli military authorities, the Palestinian Authority in parts of the West Bank, and Hamas in Gaza each exercise coercive control that produces distinct but overlapping patterns of persecution and rights violations. Political dissent directed at any governing authority results in arbitrary arrest, administrative detention without charge, and torture, with activists, student leaders, and social media users routinely targeted for expressing opinions critical of the occupation or domestic governance. Ethnic and national identity forms the basis of systematic discrimination in access to land, housing, freedom of movement, and family reunification, while women face inadequate protection from gender-based violence under fragmentary personal status laws. LGBT individuals face severe risk from both institutional and community violence, and millions of Palestinian refugees remain stateless and lack durable solutions across the region.

Israel: Palestinian citizens within Israel experience institutionalized inequality in land use, housing, and municipal resource allocation, and political leaders and organizations advocating for equal rights or opposing military operations have faced surveillance, prosecution, and restrictions on political activity. Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers face systemic denial of refugee status and prolonged detention under policies that classify them as infiltrators rather than protection seekers, and Ethiopian-Israeli communities report discriminatory policing practices and barriers to socioeconomic advancement. Women in communities governed by religious law — including Sharia, Rabbinical, and Druze courts — face legal inequality in matters of marriage, divorce, and custody, and LGBT asylum seekers who flee persecution in neighbouring countries encounter barriers to recognition and protection despite Israel's domestic legal framework.

Jordan: Jordanian intelligence services maintain extensive surveillance of political life, and citizens who criticize the monarchy, expose corruption, or organize independent political activity face detention, prosecution under broadly worded security and cybercrime legislation, and restrictions on travel. Palestinian-origin Jordanians, who constitute a significant portion of the population, face periods of arbitrary citizenship withdrawal, and Iraqi, Syrian, and other refugee populations experience precarious legal status with limited access to employment and services. Women continue to face honour-based violence and discrimination in personal status law, and shelters and legal aid for survivors of domestic abuse remain insufficient. LGBT persons face police harassment and prosecution under public morality provisions, and non-Muslim religious minorities experience social pressure and legal limitations on conversion and proselytization.

Lebanon: The Lebanese political system, structured around sectarian power-sharing, produces endemic corruption and governance failures that restrict citizens' ability to hold leaders accountable, with security forces and party militias suppressing protests and targeting activists and journalists who challenge the status quo. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon face severe restrictions on property ownership, employment, and access to public services, amounting to systematic exclusion from social and economic life, while Syrian refugees face increasing hostility, forced returns, and summary deportation. Women are subject to discriminatory nationality laws that prevent them from passing citizenship to their children, and domestic workers under the kafala system are vulnerable to trafficking and forced labour. LGBT individuals face prosecution, arbitrary detention, and forced anal examinations under morality laws, and intersectarian couples face legal obstacles to civil marriage.

Experience

• Served as an expert witness in over 85 asylum cases before UK immigration tribunals and US immigration courts, providing comprehensive country condition evidence on Palestine, Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon, with particular focus on refugee status, statelessness, and political persecution.
• Provided oral testimony before the Upper Tribunal and submitted expert reports to Federal Immigration Courts on the situation of Palestinian refugees across multiple host countries, including analysis of internal relocation options and the adequacy of state protection.
• Produced country of origin information reports and risk assessments on the treatment of political activists, religious minorities, and LGBT individuals in the Levant and wider region for solicitors, barristers, and legal aid organisations.
• Held a teaching and research position in Refugee Studies and International Human Rights at Birzeit University, with extensive field research on Palestinian displacement, statelessness, and refugee governance across the Middle East.
• Worked with international non-governmental organisations and UN agencies on documenting the conditions of Palestinian refugee populations in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the Occupied Territories. Expert member of The Human Rights Experts.

Full professional experience is available in the CV. Please email us to receive the detailed expert CV.

Publications

Available upon request and detailed in the expert CV.

Languages

• Arabic (Native)
• English (Fluent)
• Hebrew (Conversational)
• French (Reading proficiency)

Religious Groups Expertise

All religious groups

Contact Email

info@thehuman-rights.com