PRESS RELEASE

Released @ 10.00 hours GMT 19 July 1998

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights Presents Report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva

Last week the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) submitted a report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva. The Committee, composed of 18 international experts, monitors the compliance of State Parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Members of the Committee are chosen from countries who are State Parties to the Convention, but they serve in a personal capacity, not as government representatives. During its Sixty-Third Session this month the Committee examined the combined initial and first periodic report of Israel who ratified the Covenant in 1991. Israel’s report is several years overdue.

PCHR’s initial concern was that the Israeli report to the Committee made no mention of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, implicitly denying their responsibility to implement the Covenant in these areas. The report of the PCHR stressed, first and foremost, the need for Israel to enforce the protections granted in the ICCPR in the OPT and emphasized that Israel is obliged to apply principles of humanitarian law (including Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 1949) and human rights law (including the ICCPR) in the OPT. In 1997, the UN Commission on Human Rights, in its resolution on the question of the violation of human rights in the occupied Arab territories, including Palestine, “called on Israel to desist from all forms of human rights violations in relevant territories and to respect principles of international law and international humanitarian law.”

The three areas highlighted in the report of PCHR were freedom from torture, the right to movement and due process rights. These are three areas in which the Israeli government has violated the rights of Palestinians in a particularly egregious manner and which the PCHR felt were vital for the Committee members to acknowledge. The Israeli border closures in the OPT, the legalization of torture by Israel to obtain information and the continuing arbitrary arrest and administrative detention of Palestinians in Israeli jails where they are denied access to their families and to Palestinian lawyers, are all policies that have denied Palestinians their basic civil and political rights.

PCHR’s report discussed the Israeli policy of closure (partial or complete) of the borders around the West Bank and Gaza, stating that it “has not only violated the freedom of movement of the Palestinian people but has led to serious degradation of living conditions in the OPT and the subsequent violation of many other human rights, economic and social as well as civil and political. Furthermore, the Israeli claim that closure is a necessary security measure is a dubious and flawed argument and therefore does not provide adequate justification under Article 12, paragraph 3 of the ICCPR. The policy of closure is ineffective in improving security, arbitrary in the way it is applied and amounts to collective punishment of the Palestinian population in the OPT. Finally, it is a morally reprehensible measure which has led to great suffering of the Palestinian people and undermines the peace process.”

In regards to torture, the PCHR’s report noted that, “currently, around 4,000 detainees are being held in Israel in substandard conditions. Around 200 are administrative detainees. Some of them have been imprisoned without trial or formal charges for the last five years. The detainees are denied periodic family visits and the Israeli authorities also refuse to allow young men visits to their relatives in Israeli prisons. Palestinians detained in Israeli jails are subjected to deteriorating conditions, extreme temperatures, inadequate food and medical attention and excessive violence at the hands of prison authorities, which in many cases amounts to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Israel has adopted legislative, judicial and administrative measures which have as both their purpose and effect, the sanctioning of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, while placing a veil of legality over the use of illegal practices against Palestinian detainees. In 1997, 4 Palestinians died while under Israeli custody, one of them as a result of torture.”

Finally, in terms of due process rights, PCHR’s report stated that, “Israeli military orders, which are still in force in the OPT, defy minimum standards set for a fair trial under Article 14 of the ICCPR. Palestinians are often tried in Military Courts which have continued to function since Israeli re-deployment. The Military Courts which were previously in Gaza have been amalgamated into one Court and moved to the outskirts of the Gaza Strip, to the Erez military area, which is still under Israeli jurisdiction. Furthermore, Palestinian lawyers are banned from providing legal counsel for Palestinian detainees held in Israeli prisons. The fundamental right of a person to be represented by his/her lawyer has been removed by the Israelis since Palestinian lawyers can neither visit their clients in prison nor represent them in military courts. This has serious consequences for the rights of those detained.”

PCHR’s list of questions for the Committee to use while investigating the Israeli delegation and PCHR’s report were presented to the Committee members by the Federation International des Ligues des Droites de l’Homme (FIDH) in Geneva, with whom PCHR is affiliated. FIDH reported that the information provided by PCHR was very helpful to Committee members. PCHR also signed a letter asking the Committee to request an additional report on the OPT from Israel. Other NGO signatories included the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), Amnesty International, B’Tselem, Committee for the Liberation of Souha Bechara, FIDH, Human Rights Watch, LAW, and Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. These organizations also provided reports to the Committee.