Wednesday
Jul 22, 1998
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Introduction |Mid-East Rights | Legislative Activism | Direct Action & Civil Disobedience | Media Campaign
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July/Aug. 1998 (1419 A.H.) - Issue #2
Israel grilled by UN human rights watchdog
11:07 a.m. Jul 15, 1998 Eastern
By Elif Kaban
GENEVA, July 15 (Reuters) - Israel was put on the stand before a United Nations human rights watchdog in Geneva on Wednesday to answer to allegations of torture, discrimination and detention without trial.
Human rights groups sought the condemnation of the Jewish state at the U.N. Human Rights Committee, whose 18 independent experts scrutinise states' compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
High on the agenda was Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the occupied Arab land, days after a snub in New York where U.N. member states voted overwhelmingly in favour of an Arab sponsored motion to enhance Palestine status at the world body.
This is the first time Israel has faced the spotlight at the U.N. forum where it is presenting a report overdue since 1993.
The body issues proposals to countries accused of rights abuses but has no power to apply sanctions, except the pressure from its international lawyers to embarrass and cajole.
Many of the 140 U.N. member states that have signed the covenant rarely, if ever, submit monitoring reports.
Israel has long tried to argue that it should not be required to report on the occupied territories, and was attacked in Geneva by the New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch for not mentioning Palestinian territories in its report.
``This report seriously misrepresents Israel's human rights record,'' Human Rights Watch executive director for the Middle East and North Africa, Hanny Megally, said in a statement.
The lawyers pressed Israel on many fronts: what is it doing about the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and in the Gaza strip, on rights abuses in occupied territories, on deaths in custody and alleged torture.
Israel was expected to respond on Thursday.
Human Rights Watch accused Israel of torture and detention of individuals as ``hostages'' and called for its condemnation.
Israel rejects allegations that its Shin Bet secret police use torture while interrogating Palestinian and other detainees.
But Israeli practices reported by rights groups such as the London-based Amnesty International included restraining people in very painful conditions, playing loud music for prolonged periods, sleep deprivation, threats including that of death, violent shaking and using cold air to chill detainees.
Another human rights group, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, called on the U.N. body to investigate alleged Israeli discrimination against non-Jews.
Israel was denying non-Jews, especially Arabs, Israeli citizenship and was carrying out ``quiet deportations'' of Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, the group charged.
The Israeli-Palestinian peace process has been deadlocked since the right-wing government of President Benjamin Netanyahu sent in bulldozers last March to carve out a Jewish settlement on a hill in occupied Arab East Jerusalem.
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