of the LGBTQ Palestinian community. Al Qaws also hosts a telephone support line. In 2002, a second group formed to specifically address the needs of Palestinian lesbian women; Aswat ("Voices" in Arabic) was founded as a project of the Palestinian Feminist NGO Kayan, at the Haifa Feminist Center. Aswat started as an anonymous email-list serving to provide support to Palestinian gay women, and has developed into an established working group that hosts monthly meetings for its approximately 60 members, and organizes lectures, events, and educational opportunities. Aswat translates and publishes original texts related to sexuality and gender identity previously unavailable in the Arabic language, and hosts the largest collection of Arabic-language texts related to homosexuality on its website. Aswat's efforts face challenges, and a fatwa was issued against co-founder Rauda Morcos. In 2010, the organization Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (PQBDS) was formed, aimed at challenging Israeli representation of gay life in Palestine and pinkwashing. They also run a website called Pinkwatching Israel. In 2015, a Palestinian artist named Khaled Jarrar painted a rainbow flag on a section of a West Bank wall, and a group of Palestinians painted over it. Jarrar said that he painted the rainbow flag to remind people that although same-sex marriage was legalized in the United States, Palestinians still live in occupation. Jarrar criticized the paint-over, stating that it "reflects the absence of tolerance, and freedoms in the Palestinian society". Palestinian state police enforce moral codes of conduct, and the level of police brutality against LGBTQ people is immense. Much of that entails different levels of harassment, ranging from the obstruction of events to violence against its members. Examples include the shut down of organizational events. In August 2019, the Palestinian Authority banned LGBTQ community organizations from operating in the West Bank in response to a planned Al Qaws event. The ban was withdrawn by the end of the month following backlash. The LGBTQ rights movement can be a cause of dissension, as it raises questions of what freedom really means for the Palestinian people. It closely ties to the ongoing matters of the occupation of Palestine; many activists, like Maisan Hamdan, believe that once liberation is achieved for the land, this will not necessarily be followed with freedom for the LGBTQ people of Palestine. Summary table See also Human rights in the State of Palestine LGBT rights in Israel LGBT rights in