Human rights violations in the OPT – HRC fourth session/NGO statement – Summary record (excerpts)

HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL

Fourth session

SUMMARY RECORD OF THE 27th MEETING

Held at the Palais des Nations, Geneva,

on Wednesday, 28 March 2007, at 10 a.m.

 President:   Mr. DE ALBA  (Mexico)

 later:  Mr. LOULICHKI  (Morocco)

   (Vice-President) 

 later:   Mr. DE ALBA  (Mexico)

   (President)

CONTENTS

IMPLEMENTATION OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLUTION 60/251 OF

15 MARCH 2006 ENTITLED “HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL” (continued) 

The meeting was called to order at 10.05 a.m.

IMPLEMENTATION OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLUTION 60/251 OF

15 MARCH 2006 ENTITLED “HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL” (agenda item 2) ( continued)

Interactive dialogue on:

Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions (continued) (A/HRC/4/20 and Add.1-3; A/HRC/4/G/1; A/HRC/4/NGO/4)

Report of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent ( continued) (A/HRC/4/39)

Report of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance (continued ) (A/HRC/4/19 and Add.2 and Add.4; A/HRC/4/NGO/82, 83 and 150)

80. Ms. MARASOVIC (Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions), speaking also on behalf of the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, drew attention to the plight of some 5,500 people in Galilee who had been forcibly displaced and then arbitrarily and illegally deprived of their land by the Israeli authorities. In one case, the people of a Palestinian Christian village near the Israeli-Lebanese border had been forced out of their homes in 1948, with the promise that they could return within a few weeks. Their land and property had subsequently been confiscated. In another case, members of a Bedouin tribe had seen their 18 square kilometres of land gradually confiscated so that they were reduced to living on a small strip of land, even though they were citizens of Israel. Such racially discriminatory forced displacement violated numerous provisions of international customary and treaty law, yet all efforts to obtain compensation for wrongful property seizure under Israeli law had failed. No Israeli or international authority had intervened effectively to halt such actions. The Council should ensure that the Israeli Government undertook the immediate annulment of all laws that arbitrarily confiscated Palestinian land or were racially discriminatory against any persons or group, particularly against Palestinians.

/…

The meeting rose at 1 p.m.