PRESS RELEASE
On PCHR’s 1998 Annual Report
Ref: 14/99
Date: 14th February 1999
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) published its 1998 Annual Report in February 1999. The report includes a narrative and financial report for the period from January 1-December 31, 1998. The report will attempt to provide a general picture of the human rights situation in the Gaza Strip. Considering that most activities of PCHR are geographically limited to the Gaza Strip, this report will not provide a comprehensive picture of the human rights situation throughout the Occupied Territories. Consequently, the information we introduce in this report for the West Bank is not comprehensive and has been used only to highlight specific human rights violations.
We hope that this report will contribute to the promotion of human rights in Palestine while serving as an indicator of the progress achieved by PCHR. An indicator document such as this one will assist us in further developing our work and programs over the coming years.
The report also includes the financial report for the same time period. Publishing the financial report reflects our deep belief and fundamental policy of maintaining the transparency of PCHR as a non-governmental, non-profit organization that provides free services to the community.
Briefing
The year of 1998 was not only the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, but also the 50th anniversary of “Al-Nakhba” (the Palestinian Catastrophe) – leading Palestinians reflect on long years of suffering and dispersion. These 50 years have brought a continuous violation of Palestinian rights. Although previous years have witnessed a high degree of violation of Palestinian human rights, this year was exceptional for its high level of violations of Palestinian human rights.
The year 1998 witnessed a dangerous escalation in the Israeli occupation authority’s use of excessive force against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In circumstances that posed no threat to the lives of Israelis, the occupation forces killed 23 Palestinians. Among this number was one child and one woman. Seven of those killed were from the Gaza Strip while the other 16 were from the West Bank. In addition, hundreds of Palestinian civilians were injured as a result of live and rubber bullets. In most of the cases, the victims were injured above the waist, which proves that the shooting was done with the aim to kill. In three different events, four Palestinians were extra-judicially killed after they were accused by Israel of being members of Izz Eddin Al-Qassam, the military wing of Hamas.
During 1998 the Israeli settlers killed 11 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and injured scores of others as a result of beatings, knifings, and shootings. Moreover, the Israeli occupation forces continued their settlement activities in the Occupied Territories. Such activities included building new housing units within the established settlements, expanding them, or building new settlements. Within this context, the occupation forces intensified their stealing and confiscating of Palestinian land for settlement purposes and for bypass roads to connect the settlements with Israeli land. Such activities came within the context of the Israeli government’s attempts to create new facts on the ground and to disrupt the geographic unity of Palestinian land, thus creating a Palestinian ghetto surrounded by settlements as a means to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Moreover, the occupation forces continued in implementing collective punishment against Palestinian civilians in clear violation of international law. Israel continues in imposing the policy of closure on the West Bank and Gaza Strip – a policy that has led to disastrous results for the basic rights and freedoms of Palestinians, particularly the economic, social, and cultural rights of Palestinian civilians. The restrictions on the trading activities of the West Bank and Gaza Strip remain. Also, restrictions on Palestinian freedom of movement between the Palestinian areas or to foreign countries remain. These restrictions included limitations on labor, students, and medical patients. In addition, an internal closure was imposed on a number of cities and villages. The year witnessed the death of two citizens at Israeli military checkpoints in the West Bank as a result of the Israeli policy of closure and the prevention of patients being able to travel to hospitals.
By the end of 1998, almost 2,500 Palestinian detainees were still in Israeli prisons. Among them, 100 detainees were administratively arrested without trial. Those detainees are subjected to inhuman living conditions and are suffering from medical neglect. During 1998, four Palestinian prisoners died in Israeli prisons, two of them as a result of Israeli medical negligence; a third was said by the Israeli occupation forces to have committed suicide. There is evidence that the fourth detainee died as a result of torture. This result is a regular outcome of Israeli policy against detainees. The policy aims at torturing the detainees, especially after the legalization of torture by the executive, judicial, and legislative authorities in Israel. As a result of this legalization, Israel is considered the only state in the world that has legalized torture.
More than five years after signing the Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles on September 13, 1993, and more than four years after the May 4, 1994 Interim Agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), there are clear indications that Palestinian human rights have been sacrificed for “peace” and “security.” By the end of 1998, neither peace nor security had been achieved and the human rights situation had deteriorated. The Israeli measures against the Palestinian people and their land led to a complete blocking of the peace process. The Netanyahu government worked at killing the peace process and neglected its international commitments resulting from the Interim Agreement. This was clear through the following:
- The refusal to re-deploy from the West Bank.
- The escalation of settlement activities and confiscation of Palestinian land.
- The continuing adoption of measures aimed at isolating East Jerusalem from the rest of the occupied land and the pursuit of ethnic cleansing policies.
- The continuing imposition of closure and the refusal to open safe passages between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
- The insistence on refusing to release Palestinian detainees and indeed using them as a means of political blackmail.
Within this context, the Israeli government, with the support of the United States, continued to pressure the Palestinian Authority (PA) to violate human rights standards through forcing it to carry out illegal arresting waves of Palestinian opposition members.
On October 23, 1998, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and American President Bill Clinton signed the Wye River Memorandum after intensive efforts by the American administration to push forward the peace process. What particularly concerns PCHR is that this Memorandum once again neglected the importance of human rights in securing meaningful peace and security. In a dangerous development, the United States will play a fundamental role in implementing the security aspects of the Memorandum through its direct participation in a bi-lateral committee with the PA, and in a tri-lateral committee with both the PA and Israel to monitor the necessary steps that are to be taken by the PA to combat violence.
According to the Memorandum, a timetable of three months was agreed to in order to implement the second phase of re-deploying Israeli forces in the West Bank as committed to in the Interim Agreement signed on September 28, 1995. Palestinian official sources mentioned that the PA would control, according to the agreement,
about 44 percent of the West Bank. It was clear, however, that this amount would not only include the areas under Palestinian civil and security jurisdiction (Area A), but would include the areas under PA civil jurisdiction and Israeli security jurisdiction (Area B). As a result of the first phase of the re-deployment process, which began at the beginning of October 1995, the size of the area subjected to PA civil and security control is three percent of the West Bank. According to the new agreement, 14.2 percent will be added to it from Area B and 1 percent from Area C (full Israeli control). In addition, about 12 percent will transfer from Area C to Area B. Accordingly, and by the completion of the second phase of the Israeli occupation forces re-deployment, the size of the area under full Palestinian security and civil control (Area A) will be approximately 18.2 percent. Therefore, approximately 81.8 percent of the West Bank will be under Israeli security control, in which part of this area will be under Palestinian civil control (Area B). In regard to the Gaza Strip, nothing would change. The Israeli occupation forces will continue to control 40 percent of the Gaza Strip, including the military installations, the settlements, and the bypass roads, in addition to the yellow areas (the areas subjected to Israeli security control), in accordance with the Interim Agreement of 1994.
The Israeli government is using the partial re-deployment process from the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a means to justify its illegal stand refusing to implement the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. In this context, Israel claims that more than 90 percent of the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza Strip are under PA control. This matter violates the Fourth Geneva Convention and does not free Israel from implementing its commitment as one of the High Contracting Parties (HCPs) to the Convention. This year witnessed intensive activities carried out by the Swiss government, which claimed to be implementing the UN General Assembly recommendation to it as the depository of the Geneva Conventions, to prepare for a conference of the High Contracting Parties to discuss possible means of implementing the Fourth Geneva Convention in the Occupied Territories. The steps currently being taken, however, contradict the UN General Assembly resolutions. The PLO participated in the meeting despite the Centre warning not to take part.
Soon after the signing of the Wye River Memorandum, the PA adopted additional measures against the opposition forces. Such measures included the carrying out of illegal waves of arrests against them and added restrictions on the right of freedom of expression and the right of peaceful assembly. Despite the PA’s adoption of these heavy-handed measures, the Israeli government quickly refused to re-deploy from the areas agreed at Wye. The year ended with the peace process suffering from clinical death and waiting for an early Israeli election in May 1999.
The essential defect in the PA practice is due to its inability (and outright lack of enthusiasm) to balance between its commitment in the Interim Agreement to Israel and its commitment to Palestinian society. Although the PA met its commitments in the peace process, internal structural defects emerged, particularly as regards the rule of law, respect for human rights, and the need to create a political system that is based on the concept of the separation of powers as the necessary foundation for establishing a democratic Palestinian state. During 1998 the defective aspects in PA practices remained and were exacerbated. There was a dangerous deterioration in the rule of law and justice. The High State Security Court is still working without the minimum standards for holding fair trials. In February 1998 the PA retired the Chief Justice, who is the President of the High Court of Justice. The position was still unfilled at the beginning of 1999. Also, in May 1998, the Attorney General resigned from his position, protesting the non-implementation of his orders. His position also remained unfilled at the beginning of 1999. The year also witnessed the failure of the Executive Authority to follow court decisions, including those of the High Court. All of these matters contributed to a deteriorating judicial system in the Occupied Territories. Furthermore, the Palestinian security forces continued carrying out illegal arresting waves against the opposition due to their political opinions. In a new qualitative escalation, the PA imposed a house arrest on Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). The year ended without releasing scores of citizens who were arrested without proper legal procedures. A number of these detainees have been detained for approximately three years. In addition, 1998 recorded a number of cases in which detainees were subjected to different kinds of torture and inhuman treatment by Palestinian interrogators.
During the year, there was also a decrease in the practice of freedom of expression and publication. The PA imposed additional restrictions on the work of journalists and arrested and beat a number of them who were merely carrying out their work. A number of press agency offices were closed without any legal justification.
Finally, 1998 witnessed clear shortcomings in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). The PLC did not meet expectations of its role, especially in legislation, monitoring, and accountability. It was clear that the Executive Authority was working at marginalizing the Council. In turn, the Council failed to adopt serious measures to counter the Executive Authority’s efforts. The situation worsened with the beating of PLC members by the security forces of the Executive Authority on August 26, 1998 during their participation in popular protest against the house arrest of the Imad Awadallah family after Imad escaped from the Jericho jail on August 15, 1998. The year ended without approving the Basic Law by the Executive Authority, which had already been approved by the Legislative Council in its third draft on October 2, 1998. Furthermore, no election had been held for Local Councils by the end of the year. Instead, the election was deferred to an uncertain date.
Notes
You may obtain a copy of the 1998 Annual Report in Arabic by contacting PCHR.
P.O. Box 1328, Omar Al-Mukhtar Street, Near Al-Amal Hotel, Gaza
Telefax: 282-5893, 282-4776, or 282-3725
E-mail [email protected]
We are currently translating the 1998 Annual Report into English and we will announce its publication in the near future.
