Israel’s Attorney General, Haim Cohn, and Dr. Isaac Lewin, spokesman here for the World Organization of Agudath Israel, today staunchly endorsed a French proposal affirming United Nations recognition of the right of asylum as a basic human right. Both spoke before the UN Commission on Human Rights, currently in session here.
Israel, said Mr. Cohn, could not understand fears voiced in some countries that the right of asylum would constitute interference with the sovereign rights of those states. The declaration proposed by the French delegation, said the Israeli expert on jurisprudence, provides a “clean” standard, a “code of ethics.” He urged the UN to recognize “the long-standing human right to asylum from persecution.”
Dr. Lewin, endorsing the French proposal, proposed amendments, particularly emphasizing one giving the right of asylum to persons whose religious rights are endangered. He suggested that the declaration introduced by France could be improved if it held that: “Every person whose life, physical integrity or religion is threatened, in violation of the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, shall be regarded as entitled to seek asylum.”
Citing the biblical origin of the concept of asylum, Dr. Lewin pointed out that Judaic law did not restrict the right of asylum to “the children of Israel alone, but stressed that it must be applied also to ‘the stranger and the settler among them.'”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
