Enforced disappearances in south Lebanon – CHR Special Rapporteur report (excerpts)

QUESTION OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF ALL PERSONS

SUBJECTED TO ANY FORM OF DETENTION OR IMPRISONMENT

QUESTION OF ENFORCED OR INVOLUNTARY DISAPPEARANCES

Report of the Working Group on Enforced

or Involuntary Disappearances

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Introduction

1. The present report of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances is submitted pursuant to Commission on Human Rights resolution 1993/35, entitled "Question of enforced or involuntary disappearances". …

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II. INFORMATION CONCERNING ENFORCED OR INVOLUNTARY DISAPPEARANCES

IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES REVIEWED BY THE WORKING GROUP

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Israel

Information reviewed and transmitted to the Government

300. The Working Group's activities in relation to Israel are recorded in its previous report to the Commission. 1/

301. No cases of disappearance were reported to have occurred in 1993.  By letter dated 15 June 1993, the Working Group reminded the Government of Israel of the one outstanding case transmitted in the past.  By letter dated 20 October 1993, the Working Group retransmitted the case to the Government, updated with new information from the source.

Information reviewed and transmitted from the Government

302. By letter dated 17 November 1993, the Government of Israel informed the Working Group that efforts made to locate the whereabouts of the one outstanding case of disappearance had not yet led to any results.  Further information was required regarding the identity and the address of the missing person.

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Lebanon

Information reviewed and transmitted to the Government

306. The Working Group's activities in relation to Lebanon are recorded in its previous 10 reports to the Commission. 1/

307. No cases of disappearances were reported to have occurred in 1993.   By letter dated 10 June 1993, the Working Group reminded the Government of Lebanon of its obligation to do its utmost in order to elucidate the 243 cases of disappearance transmitted to it in the past.  Reference was made to article 7 of the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disapearance, which stated that "No circumstances whatsoever, whether a threat of war, a state of war, internal politicla instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked to justify enforced disappearance".  The only cases excluded by the Working Group are those which occur in the context of an international armed conflict.  The Working Group requested the Government of Lebanon to do its utmost to investigate the 243 cases of disappearance and to submit to it further information on these cases.

Information reviewed and transmitted from the Government

308. By a note verbale dated 23 February 1993, the Permanent Mission of Lebanon to the United Nations Office at Geneva informed the Working Group that the Government had undertaken, but in vain, investigations regarding the 243 cases of disappearance transmitted by the Group.  It wished to draw the Working Group's attention to the fact that the Lebanese authorities were not in control of the regions of the country where these disappearances had occurred, because of the state of war in the country.  By note verbale dated 27 May 1993, the Government stated that it had no further information on these cases.

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1/ Since its creation in 1980, the Working Group has submitted a report to the Commission annually, starting at the Commission’s thirty-seventh session. The document symbols of the last 13 reports are as follows:

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Annex III

GRAPHS SHOWING THE DEVELOPMENT OF DISAPPEARANCES

IN COUNTRIES WITH MORE THAN 50 TRANSMITTED CASES

DURING THE PERIOD 1974-1992

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