Dr. Haider Abdul Shafi Center for Culture and Development commemorates the sixteenth anniversary of the death of the great national leader Dr. Haider Abdul Shafi and organizes a dialogue workshop entitled "The Role of Civil Society Organizations in Achieving Student Elections in Gaza Universities."

The Dr. Haider Abdul Shafi Center for Culture and Development commemorated the sixteenth anniversary of the death of the late great national leader Dr. Haider Abdul Shafi. This came at the beginning of a workshop organized by the center titled "The Role of Civil Society Organizations in Achieving Student Elections in Gaza Universities," hosted by Mr. Bakr Al-Turkmani, a lawyer at the Independent Commission for Human Rights in Gaza.

The workshop began with a screening of a short film about the life of the late great leader, followed by a speech by Mr. Mohsen Abu Ramadan, the director of the center, in which he highlighted the connection between the workshop title and what Dr. Haider advocated in his life. He emphasized the importance of achieving democratic transformation in Palestinian society, adopting periodic elections, respecting different opinions, emphasizing the importance of participation and accountability, and stressing the importance of national unity.

On the other hand, Mr. Bakr discussed the role of civil society organizations by forming a coalition comprising many alliances, civil networks, and human rights organizations, coordinated by the Independent Commission. This coalition organized a series of meetings between party representatives, student bloc secretariats, and university administrations, achieving progress in this field, including agreeing on proportional representation and adopting a charter of freedoms, while emphasizing the distinction between freedom of opinion and expression and hate speech.

Mr. Bakr called for working to overcome all obstacles to the electoral process and creating an atmosphere of trust among all parties. Mr. Talal Abu Rukba, who moderated the workshop, pointed out that elections will defend students' union and advocacy rights and contribute to selecting national leadership.

The interventions from participants emphasized the importance of successful efforts to achieve student elections, which can provide an atmosphere for holding elections in all Palestinian representative institutions.

This meeting comes in the context of issuing the Citizenship Magazine, published by the center quarterly and funded by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom.