Situation in the OPT/Int’l Peace Conference under A/RES/38/58 C – Letter from CEIRPP Chairman

Letter dated 22 September 1987 from the Chairman of the Committee

on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian

People addressed to the Secretary-General

In my capacity as Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, I wish once again urgently to draw your attention to the steady deterioration of the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories as a result of the policy and practices of the Israeli authorities.

In particular, suspected opponents of the occupation of the Palestinian territories continue to be subjected to measures of administrative detention without charges or trial, for periods of up to six months.  The latest case is the arrest, on 12 September 1987, of Mr. Faisal Husseini, the well-known director of the Arab Studies Society.  According to Ha'aretz of 14 September 1987, the Israeli Minister of Defence ordered that Mr. Husseini should be detained for six months "for not having changed his activities" following his release two months ago after a three-month period of administrative detention.  According to a report in Ha'aretz of 8 February 1987, this detention was apparently connected with charges that he had made a statement favourable to PLO in an interview granted to a journalist from The Jerusalem Post.   Prior to this latest arrest, Mr. Husseini had also been held for 10 days on charges of membership in an "illegal organization" but was released on 4 September.

According to Mr. Ibrahim Nassar, one of his lawyers, Mr. Husseini's recent arrest was linked to his activities in the Committee Confronting the Iron Fist Policy, a Jewish-Arab group opposed to Israeli policies in the occupied territories.  According to The Jerusalem Post of 30 August 1987, it was also connected with a recent press conference during which Mr. Husseini gave a demonstration of what he described as "Israeli methods of torture" used against Palestinians in Israeli prisons.  In addition, Mr. Husseini had been under town arrest for five years until earlier this year.

The Committee wishes to reiterate its deep concern over the policy and practices of Israel in the occupied territories, which only exacerbate tension in the region and create new obstacles to a negotiated and peaceful settlement of the Palestinian question, the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East.  In view of the steady deterioration of the situation in the occupied territories, it is vital for the international community to intensify its efforts to achieve such a settlement by convening the International Peace Conference on the Middle East in accordance with General Assembly resolution 38/58 C.

I should be grateful if you would arrange for the text of this letter to be circulated as a document of the General Assembly, under agenda item 38, and of the Security Council.