Ref: 22/2023
Date: 27 March 2023
Lawyer Raji Sourani participated in the 3rd World Forum on Human Rights, which took place from 20 to 24 March in Buenos Aires- Argentina and was attended by thousands of activists from human rights organizations, civil society, United Nations (UN) organizations, politicians, parliamentarians and academics from all over the world.
The forum aims to deepen and discuss the challenges facing the promotion and protection of human rights around the world. Argentina’s hosting of the forum gave it a fourth dimension, as Buenos Aires is the capital of culture and freedom in Latin America, and Argentina has a remarkable history, as it was ruled by the dictator Pinochet who killed tens of thousands of Argentines while at least 30,000 others were subjected to forced disappearance, but eventually Pinochet was overthrown, arrested, brought to trial, and held accountable for the war crimes he had committed against the people of Argentina.
On the sidelines of the Forum, Sourani held several meetings, including with the national Secretary of Human Rights; the Secretary-General of the Argentine Workers’ Central Union (CTA) -Central de Trabajadores de la Argentina-; Mr. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Former Prime Minister of Spain, and Ms. Hana Jalloul, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in Spain.
Moreover, Sourani met with judge Baltasar Garzón, one of the most important symbols of international justice who issued the famous order to arrest the dictator Pinochet for the war crimes and crimes against humanity he committed. Garzón’s decision is considered the first precedent in activating the principle of universal jurisdiction.
Sourani also met with Ms. Amina Bouayach, President of the National Human Rights Council in Morocco, which hosted the World Pre-Forum on Human Rights as a prelude to the World Forum in Buenos Aires, as well as Mr. Riyad Al-Halabi, Ambassador of Palestine and head of the Palestinian Community in Latin America; and Ms. Paula Shaheen, one of the most prominent activists in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Latin America.
Sourani also met with representatives of human rights organizations and lawyers from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Chile.
Sourani also had interviews with several media outlets, including Público TV and major magazines and newspapers.
About his participation in the forum, Sourani said “Participating in this World Forum promotes the Palestinian presence in important and distinctive international forums, and it is to emphasize our mutual support for the important and just humanitarian causes. We in Palestine have also a just cause and call on the free people of the world to support and stand with it, and we shall in return support their struggle as much as we can.”
The forum was an occasion to stress the Palestinian rights as on the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, the Palestinian people are facing the most serious and bloodiest attacks in their history by the Israeli occupation and its most extremist government that explicitly deny not only the political rights of our people but also our existence as people in light of their public call for ethnic cleansing and transfer.
Sourani said that the West, particularly the United States and Europe, are first and foremost responsible for the deteriorating situation in Palestine, as they gave the political and legal cover to Israel at the UN Security Council, UN General Assembly, and Human Rights Council as well as universal jurisdiction cases and the opposition to the International Criminal Court (ICC). By this, they protected the occupying power and encouraged it to commit massacres against our people in the absence of accountability.
Sourani explained that the new Israeli government is exposing and not originating the Israeli crimes, including ethnic cleansing, Judaizing Jerusalem, settlement activity, Apartheid, willful killings, assassinations, house demolitions, arrests, closure and collective punishment against more than 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for 16 years, not to mention the 5 Israeli Offensives on Gaza, where civilians and civilian objects were in the eye of the storm.
Sourani added that the situation in Ukraine exposed the West’s falsity, hideousness complicity in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The politicization and selectivity of Europe and US. in applying the international law undermines the international law and the international justice system, and their position to Russia-Ukraine War by imposing sanctions on Russia and exerting pressure on the ICC Prosecutor to issue only one year after the conflict broke out is a sin committed by the West against our resilient and patient people.
Sourani stressed our people have the right to struggle by all available means, including the use of universal jurisdiction and human rights mechanisms to confront the West and its tools, as using this humane legal weapon gives a fourth dimension to the conflict and
proves human, moral and legal superiority over the occupation. Also, it does not contradict nor conflict with all other forms of struggle, but rather completes and defends them.
Sourani emphasized that ICC will remain our aim and we will not give in resorting and knocking its locked doors with the decision of the former prosecutor, Ms. Fatou Bensouda, to open an investigation from March 2021. Sourani added that we will use all legal and political available means to activate the investigation, noting that this will not be the only legal method that we will use as the representatives of the victims. Sourani emphasized that we, as human rights defenders and representatives of the victims and their families, will never forgive nor forget, and will prosecute the war criminals and haunt them with the souls, sufferings, pains and blood of children, women and civilian victims who were killed by the Israeli crimes.