Press Release
Date: 27 October 1999
Ref: 109/99
At the invitation of the Committee for the Support for the Arab Question, Raji Sourani, Director of PCHR, visited Spain from the 17th to the 28th of October 1999. He visited Vittoria, Bambiula, Mulaga, Valencia, Cortoba, Seera, Juza, Madrid and Hala cities. He met a number of Spanish human rights organisations such as Lawyers Without Borders, and Judges for Democracy in addition to a number of human right committees in the parliaments of the above mentioned governates and with representatives of Spanish political forces in these parliaments. He also met with the foreign affairs committee of the Spanish national parliament.
He also delivered lectures in Madrid University, Valencia University, Serra Joza University and in Al Hala and Madrid cities. His lectures focused on the human rights situation in the OPT’s. He also affirmed in his lectures the impossibility of separating the development in political circumstances from human rights, asserting that the outcome of the Oslo agreements so far has been the emergence of a de facto apartheid system in the OPT’s.
One of the basic aims of the Oslo agreements was to build confidence between Palestinians and Israelis. This aim has not been achieved as a result of Israeli practices. The other basic aim of the Agreements was to conclude negotiations on the final status issue by the end of the five years of the interim period, the 4th May 1999. In fact, to date negotiations on these issue have not even begun..
He described Israeli practices in the OPT’s, particularly the ethnic cleansing policy, the judaisation of East Jerusalem, the vertical and horizontal expansions of settlements, the construction of new settlements and land confiscation. He explained that these actions by the Israeli government are being carried out at an escalating pace, faster than before the Oslo agreements.
He also mentioned the impact of the by-pass roads in the West Bank. These roads turn the Palestinian area into a kind of bantustan of isolated enclaves of Palestinian control. He also discussed the closure policy which has had disastrous social and economic impact on the Palestinian people, and has cut any geographic or economic unity in the OPT’s.
He also pointed out that there is no essential difference between the policies of Netanyahu and Barak. In this regard he referred to Barak’s victory speech after the election on 17th May 1999, in which he determined the policy of his government with four basic premises: Jerusalem as the unified capital for Israel, no return for Palestinian refugees, no dismantling of Israeli settlements which are to be considered part of the Israeli state, and no return to the 1967 borders. Given these conditions, Mr. Sourani foresaw no possibility of reaching a resolution on the final status issues. He also highlighted that the Barak government see 18% of historical Palestine as too much for the Palestinian people to establish their state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
He also mentioned the opening of the “safe” passage, five years from the signing of the Oslo agreements, saying that it is only one of three that were agreed upon in the Agreements, and furthermore that the conditions imposed on the passage by Israel make it, in fact, a decidedly unsafe passage.
He asserted that the Israeli government is purposefully misleading international opinion. As an example he cited the recent decision of the Israeli government concerning the 43 new settlements established between May 1999 and September 1999. The Israeli position on these matters is a blatant violation of international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, which declare all the settlements illegal.
He also discussed in detail the torture practiced by the Israeli officials against Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons. In this context, he asserted that Israel is the only state in the world which has legalised torture, in flagrant violation of international law. He affirmed that the recent decision of the Israeli High Court in September 1999, is a travesty of justice, as the Court, in paragraph 37 of its decision, held that the illegality of torture is derived from the fact that it is practiced according to executive articles and not on the basis of a law. He added that the Court advised the Israeli government to draft a law if it wants torture to be legal. This is an unprecedented action in the modern history of humanitarian law since it is contrary to the basic values of international conventions and standards particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention and the United Nations Convention against torture. In this regard he affirmed that torture is practiced systematically only against Palestinians. He also mentioned hundreds of people who have lost their lives or been permanently disabled through these practices. The decision of the High Court came after 20 years of local and international struggle against torture.
The main subject of these meetings was the Palestinian and Arab detainees in Israeli prisons. Mr. Sourani asserted in this regard that the detainees issue is not only a political and humanitarian issue, but also and ethical issue for us as a Palestinian people. The Palestinian people have an ethical duty towards those who legitimately fought the Israeli military occupation. Mr. Sourani also refuted the Israeli policy of discrimination between the detainees. Regarding the Israeli claim not to release those ‘with blood on their hands’, he asserted that Jewish blood is not the only blood that is sacred, but that all human blood including that of Palestinians is sacred.
He asked the people he met to work seriously to support the Arab and Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons in order to secure their release, restating that there remain more than 1600 of these detainees and that the Israeli governments release of a small part of them has been used as a means to manipulate the international community opinion.
Moreover Mr. Sourani pointed out that the anniversary of the Palestinian catastophe (El Nakba) coincided with the 50th Anniversary of the Universal declaration of Human Rights and the Fourth Geneva Convention. He asserted that the failure of the Conference of the High Contracting Parties of the Fourth Geneva Convention on 15 July 1999 to take necessary measures against Israeli as a result of its severe violations of Palestinian human rights is not only a disaster for the Palestinian people but also a disaster for the international community and for international humanitarian law. In this regard he asserted that the selective application and the politicisation of this Convention will have a disastrous influence on the international community.
Throughout the tour, Sourani met a number of representatives of the Spanish media and discussed the same issues with them.
