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HRC 53 - SR OPT - 10 JULY 2023 continuity
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16:05
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1.2 GB
Statements
HRC 53: ID with SR on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and countries concerned - 10 July 2023
Speakers:
- TC: 00:00 - Statement of Ms. Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. Pls, see PDF attached for the statement. Check against delivery.
- TC: 10:36 - Israel empty chair in Room XX of the Human Rights Council
- TC: 10:55 - Statement of country concerned (Palestinian territories): Ambassador Ibrahim KHRAISHI, Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to UN Geneva
Speakers:
- Interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Ms. Francesca Albanese
- Israel empty chair in Room XX of the Human Rights Council
- Statement of country concerned (Palestinian territories): Ambassador Ibrahim KHRAISHI, Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to UN Geneva
Teleprompter
Excellencies, delegates, members of civil society and national human rights institutions, I'm honoured to present my first report as Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 to the Human Rights Council.
Allow me to express my gratitude to the distinguished members of the Council for bestowing upon me this mandate that I undertake with unwavering dedication, rigour and impartiality.
I chose to focus this report on arbitrary deprivation of liberty early in my tenure because of the gravity of this phenomenon in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Since 1967, Israel has detained approximately 1,000,000 Palestinians in the occupied territory, including 10s of thousands of children.
Currently, there are 5000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, including 160 children, and 1100 of them are detained without charge or trial.
Let me be clear from the outset, I do not condone any acts of violence that the Palestinians might have committed or might commit while living under an unlawful occupation or in in the pursuit to end it.
However, we must acknowledge that most Palestinians have been convicted through a series of violations of international law, such as discrimination, persecution and breaches of due process, and for ordinary acts of life in the exercise of legitimate rights.
I found the widespread and systemic systemic arbitrary deprivation of liberty of Palestinians is a structural component of the regime that Israel has imposed upon them.
And let's look closer at the structure.
The enforcement of the probation of liberty of Palestinians in the occupied territory rests in the hand of the Israeli military, which writes and forces and reviews martial laws that only applied to Palestinians.
Israeli domestic laws, meanwhile, applies to Israeli settlers illegally residing therein.
This dual legal system is the pillar of Israel's apartheid regime.
The presence of the Palestinian Authority does not change this reality, nor does it alter Israel's obligation under international law.
An intricate web of military orders, about 2500 of them an emergency regulation dating back to the British Mandate era, dictate offences enforced at the discretion of the Israeli military.
I would like you to consider just some of the legal grounds that lead to Palestinians arrest and detention.
Political gatherings of more than 10 people, including processions or vigils without a permit by the army, are criminalised with 10 years imprisonment.
Entering military declare restricted areas in the West Bank and this Jerusalem is subject to 7 to 10 years imprisonment.
Having contacts with or possessing materials related to hostile organisation is punishable with 10 years imprisonment.
And let me be clear, all major Palestinian organisations, from political parties to charities and human rights organisations are considered hostile.
Membership in any group where other members commit specific offences is punishable by life imprisonment.
This draconian legal regime, which is also vaguely drafted and confusing across military orders that overlap and contradict each other, lays the foundation of a coercive environment whereby Palestinians are constantly at risk of being imprisoned, often by carrying out the simples simple acts of life from farming, fishing, going to school, but also opposing the occupation.
The broad base to incarcerate Palestinians notwithstanding, Palestinians are routinely arrested and detained without charge or trial, often based on secret evidence and for an indefinite period of time, leaving them in a limbo of uncertainty.
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Military courts, staffed by entirely military personnel, are the primary and often the only judicial Ave accessible to Palestinians.
And in military courts, where rights to defence is simply not enforceable, Palestinians are presumed guilty, registering a steep **** conviction rate of 99% and forcing most of them to resort to plea bargain, confessing crimes that they have not committed.
The very common unlawful deportation outside the occupied Palestinian territory, because 80% of Palestinian prisoners are detained against international law in Israel, triggers A domino effect of violations ranging from confinement in in in places where legal defence, legal counsel and families cannot access the detainee or the OR the prisoners.
But while in Israeli custody, Palestinians are subject to all sort of physical and psychological abuses, often to elicit confessions.
And some of these treatments may amount to torture and other cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.
Children liable to imprisonment since 12 years of age are treated as inhumanely and lawlessly as adults, forced to spend an average of 12.5 days in solitary confinement and most of the detention without contact with families or lawyers.
The prison experience leaves an indelible, indelible, traumatic mark on them, breaking the spirit of future generations.
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It is common practise for the Israeli forces to detain the bodies of Palestinian deceased in custody or killed during Israeli armed armed attacks.
Most arrests take place within one kilometres from the 270 colonies that Israel has has built for 750,000 Israeli in Israelis in the Occupied Palestinian territory, against one of the most foundational norms of international humanitarian law.
And often during raids and incursions, often at the date of light, at the end of at the dead of night, to instil fear and to make sure to quote Israeli soldiers, to make sure that their presence is felt.
This is why I say it is the security of Israel's systematic appropriation of Palestinian land and dispossession of the Palestinian people that the longest occupation of modern history is meant to defend, not the security of Israel as a member of the family of the United Nations, which remains sacrosanct.
Occupying power frames the Palestinians as a collective ******, ultimately decivilianising them, namely eroding their status as protected person under international law.
On top of it, the individual and mass deprivation of of liberty dovetails with a mass entrapment that captivates the Palestinian Sasa people in the occupied territory through physical, bureaucratic and digital confinement techniques.
Transforming the occupied Palestinian territory as a whole into a constantly surveilled open air prison.
Walls, checkpoints, alternative roads, segregated roads which fragment the territory into something that evoked the carceral archipelago of a Cauldian memory.
Bureaucratic barriers consisting of permits and prohibitions that regulate every instance of Palestinian life from visiting family, deciding to travel abroad, choosing residents and and cultivating farming their land.
Surveillance technologies that follow the Palestinians everywhere they are.
This is what the Palestinians live under.
This further restricts the Palestinians specially and psychologically, creating a pervasive system of discipline, control and punishment to anyone who objects or who opposes the system.
This large scale carcerality is an essential feature of settler colonial regimes, which in history have crashed the native populations while incrementally seizing their land.
In this context, Palestinian authorities operate in captivity under Israel's omnipresent control, and they're not a state apparatus geared to defend or protect the Palestinians, as exemplified by the recent attacks by the Israeli army or heavily armed settlers in Nablus, Jeanine, Jericho, Hawara, Masafir, Yatta, Turmosaya, orif Umsafa and the Gaza Strip.
Therefore, invoking both parties to calm down is misleading.
Israel's unlawful carceral practises are tantamount to international crimes, as I documented in my report, which warrant an urgent investigation by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
All the more as these offences appear to be part of a plan to depalestinianise the territory.
This threatened the existence of the Palestinians as a people, as a national cohesive group.
It is critical that international community recognises the legality of Israel's occupation naturally leading to apartheid.
This cannot be rectified.
This cannot be made more humane by merely addressing some of its most severe consequences.
It is to be brought to an end and restored the rule of law and justice.
And I ask you, I urge you to, to follow up on this recommendation in the interest of both the Palestinians and the Israelis.
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According to our practise, we will start by hearing from the delegations of the countries concerned.
I now give the floor to the distinguished representative of Israel.
[Other language spoken]
I note that the delegation of Israel is not present in the room.
I now give the floor to the distinguished representative of the State of Palestine.
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