GENEVA (11 July 2017) – A United Nations Special Committee will undertake its annual field visit to Amman from 12 to 14 July 2017 to gather testimonies and to hear briefings on a range of human rights issues of concern in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the occupied Syrian Golan.
The UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories will be meeting with victims, community representatives, witnesses, Israeli and Palestinian non-governmental organizations, officials from Palestine, and UN representatives.
As stipulated in the mandate, the Committee has sought the agreement of the Government of Israel to access the Occupied Territories. However, the Government of Israel maintains its practice of non-cooperation.
The Special Committee will therefore not be holding consultations with the relevant Israeli authorities. It will also not be able to access the Occupied Territories.
The Special Committee will issue an end of mission press statement, and later submit a full report on its mission and other activities to the UN General Assembly in November 2017.
The UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories was established by the UN General Assembly in December 1968 to examine the human rights situation in the occupied Syrian Golan, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
The Special Committee is composed of three Member States: Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Senegal. This year the Member States are represented by H.E. Mr. Shahrul Ikram Yaakob (chair of the Special Committee), Permanent Representative of Malaysia to the United Nations in New York, H.E. Mr. Sabarullah Khan, Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations in New York, and H.E. Mr. Coly Seck, Permanent Representative of Senegal to the United Nations in Geneva.
Read: “End of mission statement of the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices” (2016)
UN Human Rights, country pages: Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel
For more information and media requests, please contact Ms. Katharine Marshall (+41 79 444 5172/ kmarsahll@ohchr.org) or Ms. Tal Steiner (+41 79 444 6129 / tsteiner@ohchr.org)
