Human rights situation in the OPT – Report of SecGen

QUESTION OF THE VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE OCCUPIED

ARAB TERRITORIES, INCLUDING PALESTINE

Report of the Secretary-General

1. At its fiftieth session, the Commission on Human Rights adopted resolution 1994/2 entitled "Human rights in the occupied Syrian Golan".  By paragraph 6 of resolution 1994/2, the Commission requested the Secretary-General to bring the resolution to the attention of all Governments, the competent United Nations organs, the specialized agencies, regional intergovernmental organizations and international humanitarian organizations and to give it the widest possible publicity, and to report to the Commission on Human Rights at its fifty-first session.

2. In accordance with the requests of the Commission, the Secretary-General brought resolutions 1994/2 to the attention of all Governments, by a note verbale dated 19 May 1994.  It was also communicated to the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories and to the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.

3. Furthermore, the resolution was transmitted to all the specialized agencies and to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, as well as to competent regional intergovernmental organizations.  In addition, the resolution was brought to the attention of international humanitarian organizations and non-governmental organizations.

4. The Department of Public Information undertook the following activities:

(a) The Department of Public Information continued to provide press coverage of all meetings of the Special Committee and to feature and distribute United Nations information materials, documents and press releases on the activities of the Special Committee to representatives of non-governmental organizations and to the public at large through the United Nations information centres and services;

(b) In a revised edition of a booklet scheduled to be published in September 1994, in English, under the title The United Nations and the Question of Palestine, and at a later date in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Russian and Spanish, DPI devoted a full chapter to human rights in the occupied territories.  For the drafting of that chapter, DPI used extensively material available in reports of the Special Committee, including most recent ones;

(c) DPI, both at Headquarters and through the United Nations information centres and services, publicized the Special Committee's 1994 mission to the Middle East.

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