Ref: 20/2006

Date:  01 June 2006

Ref: 20/2006

Date: 1 June 2006

PCHR Director Attends Two International Conferences

PCHR’s Director, Mr. Raji Sourani, attended two international conferences during his recent visit to Geneva, which began on 22 May 2006.

From 23 to 24 May, Sourani participated in a meeting of the Executive Committee of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ).  The meeting was the first to be held following the Executive Committee elections on 3 May 2006, in which Sourani was elected as a member of the committee.  The Executive Committee is the policy-making body of the ICJ, one of the most respected legal institutions worldwide.  PCHR is a member of the ICJ, which works to enhance and monitor the rule of law and legal protection for human rights worldwide.

Sourani also participated in the international conference on “Implementing International Law: For a Just Peace in Palestine and Israel”, organized by the European Coordinating Committee on the Palestinian Issue.  The conference was held from 26 to 28 May 2006 in Geneva.

The opening session panel consisted of Sourani, Laila Shahid (Palestinian Ambassador to the EU), Pierre Galan (Belgian MP), the Director of the World Council of Churches in Geneva, and the Israeli Lawyer Lea Tsemel.  Representatives from all European countries attended the opening session, in which Sourani gave a speech on “International Law: The Essential Factor in the Struggle towards Realizing a Just Peace.”  He spoke about the Palestinian position historically regarding International Humanitarian Law.  He pointed out that International Humanitarian Law supports the Palestinian cause and considers the Israeli policies of settlement building, torture, annexation of Jerusalem, ethnic cleansing, assassinations, house demolitions, and the Annexation Wall as war crimes.

Sourani also talked about the elections experience of the Palestinian people in the past year: presidential, local, and legislative.  He noted that these were the first experience of democratic elections being held under an occupation and the first democratic parliamentary elections in the Arab world.  He pointed out that the Palestinian people are now being punished for exercising their democratic right and expressing their free will.  Sourani indicated that the winner in these elections was not Hamas but the Palestinian people. He affirmed that Palestinians are unjustly punished in contravention of International Humanitarian Law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, which calls in its first article to protect civilians and punish occupation.

In his speech, Sourani stressed that Palestinians, as part of the international community, along with the support of European civil society, need now more than ever to struggle for the rule of law.  He called upon the participants to break the conspiracy of silence against Palestinians.  He stressed that the Palestinian people are currently clinging on to their democratic choice and trying to uphold the rule of law, at a time when the American and European position are forcing a regression backwards.