The United Nations Human Rights Commission opened its annual six-week session with a report on human rights abuses in Israel and a speech by Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat.
The human rights report, presented Wednesday by the former Swiss foreign minister, Rene Felber, called on Israel to free the 12,000 Palestinians said to be in Israeli jails and urged Palestinian and Israeli leaders to end the violence by groups opposed to the peace process.
The human rights group Amnesty International issued its own report Wednesday, which also accused Israel and the Palestinians of showing a continuing pattern of human rights abuses.
A similar rebuke came the day earlier from the U.S. State Department. But the State Department’s annual human rights report had hopeful words for the future, noting the Israeli-Palestinian accord and other “positive human rights developments.”
Felber, who visited the territories last month, was the first U.N. investigator in 25 years allowed to enter the West Bank and Gaza Strip for the purpose of gathering material for the report.
Felber singled out the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas movement and Israeli settlers as being particularly responsible for the continuing violence.
He also urged Israel to establish an independent judicial body to investigate allegations that Palestinian prisoners were beaten and tortured and to punish those responsible for mistreatment.
QUESTIONING ISRAEL’S COMMITMENT TO PEACE
Arafat, addressing the U.N. body on Tuesday, also called for Israel’s release of its Palestinian prisoners, a number he put at 14,000.
While the tone of his remarks was not as inflammatory as in previous addresses to the commission, Arafat used the occasion to question Israel’s commitment to the self-rule accord it signed with the PLO last September.
“I do not deny that there is continued violence in the territories by us,” he said. “Unfortunately the conviction of the Arabs is that the Israeli government is not serious in implementing the accord.”
Arafat called on the commission to continue condemning Israeli human rights abuses, saying “as the occupation continues and the Israeli practices have not changed, please pursue your efforts in ensuring legal and international protection for our people.”
In its report, Amnesty International focused on the continued imprisonment of Palestinians by the Israelis and on the situation in southern Lebanon, where Israel and its allied South Lebanon Army continue to patrol a buffer zone protecting Israel’s northern border.
Amnesty accused Israel of torturing detainees in southern Lebanon and charged that Israel was holding about 20 Lebanese prisoners in an effort to gain information about Israeli MIAs.
“If this is the case, then they are hostages and should be released immediately and unconditionally,” the Amnesty report said.
The London-based organization said this also applied to any group that might be holding the Israeli MIAs.
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