Human rights situation in the OPT – CHR/Sub-Comm. – Letter from Palestine

QUESTION OF THE VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE OCCUPIED

ARAB TERRITORIES, INCLUDING PALESTINE

QUESTION OF THE VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS,

INCLUDING POLICIES OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND SEGREGATION AND

OF APARTHEID, IN ALL COUNTRIES, WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO

COLONIAL AND OTHER DEPENDENT COUNTRIES AND TERRITORIES:  REPORT

OF THE SUB­COMMISSION UNDER COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

RESOLUTION 8 (XXIII)

Letter dated 15 August 1997 from the Permanent Observer for

Palestine to the United Nations Office at Geneva, addressed

to the Officer­in­Charge, High Commissioner/Centre for

Human Rights

The Israeli Ministry of Health has given authorizations amounting in number to 1,000 to drugs companies, in order to experiment with dangerous drugs on the Palestinians detained and imprisoned in the Israeli jails, the number of whom has reached more than 4,000 prisoners.

This information has been revealed by the supervisor of the Committee of Science in the Israeli Knesset; it has also been reaffirmed by the head of the Drugs Section in the Israeli Ministry of Health, in front of the members of the Israeli Knesset in the same meeting.

These acts, by which the Palestinians detained and imprisoned in the Israeli prisons serve as guinea pigs to test dangerous drugs, and which expose their lives to danger, to death and to permanent handicaps, constitute a flagrant violation of the right to integrity and the right to life of thousands of the Palestinians detained in those prisons.

Furthermore, these acts, which totally contravene the conventions and the regulations of the World Health Organization, constitute at the same time flagrant violations of the principles of international law, international humanitarian law and the International Bill of Human Rights.

Thus, the Israeli Government, as well as the authorities of its military occupation of the Palestinian territory, are committing a new crime to be added to their previous crimes against the Palestinian people.

I hereby kindly request you to consider this memorandum as an official document, and to distribute it as such to the distinguished members of the forty­ninth session of the Sub­Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, currently being held in Geneva, as well as to the  members of the upcoming fifty­fourth session of the Commission on Human Rights under item 4 of its provisional agenda.

(Signed):  Nabil Ramlawi

Ambassador

Permanent Observer for Palestine

to the United Nations

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