| Newsletter Archives | ||
|
| ||
| Newsletter Archives | ||||
Volume 1, Issue 16 November - December, 20004 In this Newsletter:About The Prism GroupThe Prism Group focuses on several key issues and is pleased to see that its efforts are causing “spectrums of awareness” in many places. Our hope has always been to spread light and so in our previous newsletter, we focused on the many good things that are happening, partnerships and joint efforts by small groups in many countries, medical advancements, and more. This month’s newsletter breaks with our normal focus on Middle Eastern events to highlight the current wave of religious intolerance throughout Europe, an intolerance sparking hate crimes that appear to threaten the very fabric of Western society. Although such crimes have been committed on European soil, they are largely motivated by trends whose source lies in the Middle East. As we issue this newsletter, we can only hope that in the end, peace-loving people from all nations and all religions will choose light instead of darkness, peace instead of war, and tolerance instead of ethnic, racial, or religious differences. When Free Speech Proves Fatal: Democracy under FireOn November 2, Theo van Gogh, a controversial champion of free speech, was murdered. He was slain two months after his film 'Submission' was shown on national TV in Holland. The film, whose script was written by Somali-born Dutch politician Ayan Hirsi Ali, centres around Muslim women. Beaten, raped, then forced into marriage, these women are shown in transparent gowns; their bare skin inscribed with verses from the Koran that detail the permitted physical punishments for women who "misbehave". Subsequent to Submission's screening, both van Gogh and Ali received death threats from Islamic groups. Ali is currently under police protection, as is Dutch MP Geert Wilders, who holds outspoken opinions about what should be done with radical Islam and radical Islamic persons in the Netherlands. Race relations in historically tolerant Holland are suffering; a number of racially/religiously motivated crimes have been committed including the bombing of an Islamic school and retaliatory arson attacks against mosques and churches. According to Justice minister Piet Hein Donner: "If this is what has happened to this man, who did nothing but express his opinion, then one can no longer live decently in this land." Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende told the Dutch Parliament that extremism was undermining democracy. "It is the joint task of Muslims and non-Muslims to warn young people against radicalisation," he said, according to the Associated Press news agency. The Dutch Immigration Minister, Rita Verdonk, warns that EU countries are at risk, due to increasing radicalism among young Muslims. She states that member states must act immediately to better assimilate and integrate foreigners. The minister, whose nation currently holds the EU presidency, says that countries must ensure that immigrants learn the local language and accept Western values, but added that the EU also needed to develop, in her words, a common vision of integration. Tension in Europe has risen markedly. In another instance, this time in Belgium, Senator Mimount Bousakla of Moroccan origin is reportedly under round-the-clock police protection and has gone into hiding. She received threatening telephone calls following her appearance at the Council of Europe on forced and child marriage. In this context, the views of Helmut Schmidt, the former German chancellor and embodiment of European pluralistic socialism since World War Two, are controversial but interesting. He summed up the dilemmas in an article earlier this year. “It needed the Age of Enlightenment 250 years ago, to conceive of equal rights for any human being under a rule of law and democracy. These concepts evolved step-by-step in England, America, Holland, France and elsewhere — and quite a bit later in my own country. Yet, they did not develop in Arab regions, the Middle East, in Iran, Indonesia, India or China. Enlightenment has not as yet reached most Muslim people. And it particularly has not reached the Islamic masses, altogether about one-fifth of the global population. I often wonder about our Western attempts to proselyte the Muslim masses into democrats. They will easily accept television, automobiles, Coca Cola — and Western technologies that we export to them. But to convert them into democrats will take generations — and it will take understanding and economic aid as well as tolerance. I believe it would already be an enormous success if we could bring all their states and governments to acknowledge and obey the rule of international law — and to obey the Charter of the United Nations. Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, the general manager of Al- Arabiya news channel, recently published the following in the pan-Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat 'It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims. The hostage-takers of children in Beslan, North Ossetia, were Muslims. The other hostage-takers and subsequent murderers of the Nepalese chefs and workers in Iraq were also Muslims. Those involved in rape and murder in Darfur, Sudan, are Muslims, with other Muslims chosen to be their victims…Bin Laden is a Muslim. The majority of those who manned the suicide bombings against buses, vehicles, schools, houses and buildings, all over the world, were Muslim. … An innocent and benevolent religion, whose verses prohibit the felling of trees in the absence of urgent necessity, that calls murder the most heinous of crimes, that says explicitly that if you kill one person you have killed humanity as a whole, has been turned into a global message of hate and a universal war cry… We cannot tolerate in our midst those who abduct journalists, murder civilians, explode buses; we cannot accept them as related to us, whatever the sufferings they claim to justify their criminal deeds. These are the people who have smeared Islam and stained its image…. We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women…We cannot redeem our extremist youths, who commit all these heinous crimes, without confronting the Sheikhs who thought it ennobling to re-invent themselves as revolutionary ideologues, sending other people's sons and daughters to certain death, while sending their own children to European and American schools and colleges. In the Arab World: Uniting against ExtremistsOver 2,500 Muslim intellectuals are signatories to a petition to the United Nations requesting an international treaty to ban the use of religion for incitement to violence. The petition, addressed to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and the Security Council, calls on the UN to set up a tribunal for “the theologians of terror”, and to prevent its member states from broadcasting the “mad musings of the theologians of terror.” Among those collecting signatures are Shakir Al-Nablusi, a Jordanian writer, Jawad Hashem, a former Iraqi minister of planning, and Alafif Al-Akdhar, a leading Tunisian writer and academic. “There are individuals in the Muslim world who pose as clerics and issue death sentences against those they disagree with,” said Al-Nablusi. “These individuals give Islam a bad name and foster hatred among civilizations.” The petition describes those who use religion for inciting violence as “the sheikhs of death”. Among those mentioned is Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian cleric accused of “providing a religious cover for terrorism.” Al- Qaradawi has issued fatwas that:
Other “sheikhs of death”, Ali bin Khudhair Al-Khudhair and Safar Al-Hawali from Saudi Arabia have described the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks against the United States as “retaliations”, and thus justified under Islamic law. Another fatwa issued by the Saudi Sheikh Ali Bin Khodair Al-Khodhari approves Al-Qa'ida's 9/11 terrorist attacks: ‘It is astonishing to mourn the [American] victims as being innocents. Those victims may be classified as infidel Americans which do not deserve being mourned, because each American, as to his relation to American government, is a warrior, or supporter, in money or opinion. It is legitimate to kill all of them as combatant; or non-combatant, such as the old, the blind, or non-Muslims’ “We cannot let such dangerous nonsense to pass as Islam,” Al-Nablusi says. Excerpts from the original English translation of the petition may be found at http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD81204#_edn1 Healing the WoundedAs catastrophic as the attack or the injury, the wounded often experience another level of suffering after an attack. Months of rehabilitation, treatments, and operations follow until the days and weeks turn into an endless series of doctors and hospitals. Few can argue that Israel has experienced an unprecedented number of attacks in the last several years. She has become expert in treating not only the physical wounds, but also the psychological scars, which often last beyond the wounds that can be seen. On a bright note, eighteen children who were injured and held hostage during the Beslan siege in Russia last September were sent on a 3-week visit to Israel. "As a nation that has so much experience in dealing with terrorism, I believe we have something to offer countries such as Russia regarding the treatment of children who are victims of terror," Mahatzari says. “We have so much experience in dealing with terror and trauma, so we want to offer our help to the children to enable them to speed their recovery." The children began their trip at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon with medical checkups and psychological evaluations. The program also included art and music therapy, to help them communicate their experiences, since it is difficult for them to verbalize about what happened. The Prism Group Website:Please visit our site and help direct others to the existing fact sheets. If you have ideas for fact sheets that you believe we should investigate and compile, please write to us at: . | ||||
| Newsletter Archives | ||||
Volume 1, Issue 15 September - October, 2004 | ||||
It is always darkest just before dawn. As night leaves us, the birth of a new day is heralded by the faintest glimmer of light brightening the sky. This is the promise of a new day approaching, a promise of hope. In this newsletter, The Prism Group focuses on bright aspects that rarely receive sufficient press coverage; glimmers of hope in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
September starts the new school year throughout much of the Middle East. This year, The Prism Group is able to report on a number of positive programs being run in both the Palestinian and Israeli educational systems, programs intended to promote co-existence and peace. Ultimately, if today’s leaders cannot bring peace to the region, the task will fall to the next generation. What that generation is taught today, may very well determine how actively it fights for peace tomorrow. In the past, we have researched incitement and reported on Palestinian Authority schoolbooks that encourage violence and glorify terrorism. In this report, we offer a more optimistic view. For example:
Peace is more than just the cessation of violence. It is about people living together and working together to promote understanding. Doctors have the ability not just to heal the body, but often to mend a society.
In August, a joint conference on diabetes was held in the Palestinian city of Tul Karem. The conference was organized by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel as part of its Specialist Clinic project. The Palestinian Medical Association in Tul Karem hosted the event, which was attended by approximately 120 Palestinian physicians and included lectures and speeches by both Israelis and Palestinians.
During 2004, Israeli hospitals provided health care to a number of Palestinians, who required urgent services that could not be provided by the Palestinian Authority’s health services. Some examples included:
Earlier this year, a Palestinian baby conceived by in-vitro fertilization, was born in the 31st week of pregnancy. The baby subsequently developed an infection and was admitted to a Gazan hospital. There he was given antibiotics not suited to the pathogen causing the infection. His condition deteriorated seriously. Doctors in Gaza said his only chance of survival was to be treated in Israel.
The baby was received by Meir Hospital's premature baby I.C.U. His parents were unable to leave Gaza and be with the baby, due to a lack of documents. The head of the I.C.U, Dr. Tzipi Dolfin (who is also an unpaid deputy mayor of the neigbouring Israeli city of Ra'anana) contacted Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, noting that the presence of the parents at his bedside and their ability to give him warmth and love would help the baby recover. Arrangements were made, and the parents were able to join the infant in Israel during his recovery.
Humanitarian gestures at Soroka Medical saved Palestinian children from Gaza who have no medical insurance. A seven-year-old girl suffered second and third-degree burns over a third of her body, after she had been left alone at home and a large pot of boiling water had overturned on her. Her grandfather, who worked for many years as a building contractor in Israel, thanked the hospital and said that without its care, she would have suffered great pain and died.
During that same week a 22-month-old Palestinian boy was brought to the hospital with a severe bacterial infection. Both were successfully treated at Soroka's pediatric I.C.U. The Prism Group notes that Soroka, because of it’s proximity to Gaza, often receives cases which cannot be successfully treated in medical facilities supported by the Palestinian Authority. As noted above, such services are often rendered even though the treated individuals are without insurance and may lack the financial resources to pay Soroka.
Saving Children, an organization run by Israel's Peres Peace Center, has enabled hundreds of Palestinian children to receive free medical care from Israeli doctors in the last four months.
Previously, scores of Palestinian children with serious medical conditions went untreated due to a lack of funds and access to proper medical care.
Four Israeli hospitals participate in the 'Saving Children' program. A committee comprising several dozen Palestinian pediatricians from the West Bank and Gaza screen Palestinian infants and children. They refer Palestinian children suffering from serious conditions that cannot be treated by Palestinian doctors. Congenital heart disease, which is prevalent among Palestinians due to a high rate of consanguineous marriage, is the mostly commonly treated condition.
Under the auspices of the program, nearly 200 Palestinian children have already undergone major surgery at Israeli hospitals, at no cost to the families. Another 350-400 children have had free diagnostic testing. Prof. Anwar Dudin, a Palestinian project coordinator and a pediatrician at Bethlehem's al-Yamama hospital describes the project: "This program is a program of hope - a collaboration of Palestinian and Israeli doctors…"
Doctors in Jerusalem had an opportunity to show that medicine and the need to heal is more important than nationality, politics, or religion. Hadassah has a long history of treating both Israelis and Arabs and is one of the primary hospitals where terror victims are sent after an attack. In recent months, however, this policy of treating all those who need medical attention was extended to an Iraqi orthopedic doctor who was the only survivor of a terrorist attack in Baghdad. The blast left him with injuries to his eyes, abdomen, neck and shoulders. Doctors at Hadassah made it clear that the Iraqi would be welcome, and so he was.
Like medicine, sports are also a great unifier. As an example, we offer the case of the Peace Team, a unique example of Palestinian-Israeli co-operation. The soccer team plays in friendly international tournaments and also competes in the Israeli Professional Indoor Football League. The Peace Team has two coaches – a Palestinian coach, who is the former captain of the Palestinian national team, and an Israeli coach who has held various professional sporting and coaching positions.
This year, a soccer team from the Arab town of Sakhnin became the first Arab soccer team to win the Israeli national cup. The squad of Hapoel Bnei Sakhnin is composed of 10 Arab players, 8 Jews, a goalkeeper from Guinea, a defender from Cameroon, a French midfielder, a Polish midfielder and a Brazilian striker. They were cheered on by a stadium packed with fans, both Arab and Jew, from the team's home region of Galilee in the north of Israel. The team has just returned from a European tour, representing Israel in the UEFA cup.
In September, the Ramat Gan Safari park in Israel gifted the Qalqilya Zoo, located in the West Bank, with three young lions, along with two adolescent zebras and a deer. The staff of the two zoos have maintained close ties throughout the years of conflict.
Both the Palestinian zoo caretakers and their Israeli counterparts believe a shared love of animals may help their peoples build a bridge to peace.
"They'll be the main attraction," said Dr Sami Khader, the veterinarian at the Qalqilya zoo. "Lions are the king of any zoo. Without a king, you've got a problem."
This is part of an on-going project of Ramat Gan Safari to liaise with other zoos in the region. Earlier in the year, it supplied 2 grey kangaroos to the zoo in Amman, which had been previously living at “Gan Guru” in the Beit Shean Valley.
"If we forge lots of little links then maybe it will result in one big connection and better understanding between the two peoples", said Israeli vet Motke Levison, who escorted the animals to Qalqilya.
All For Peace, based in Jerusalem, is a new radio station with a mission: to promote intercultural awareness between Arabs and Jews in their own languages, and to instill hope for the future of the region. The station also produces programs in English.
The project is funded largely by the European Union and is run as a joint project of Biladi, The Jerusalem Times and The Jewish-Arab Centre for Peace. The station may be found on the Internet, at www.allforpeace.org
The Prism Group continues to focus on several key issues and is pleased to see that its efforts are causing “spectrums of awareness” in many places. We look forward to your feedback. Please share this newsletter with your friends.
Please visit our site and help direct others to the existing fact sheets. If you have ideas for fact sheets that you believe we should investigate and compile, please write to us at: .
| Newsletter Archives | ||||
Volume 1, Issue 14 June - July, 2004 | ||||
The Prism Group focuses on several key issues and is pleased to see that its efforts are causing “spectrums of awareness” in many places. This newsletter focuses on human rights in Israel and in the Palestinian Authority. We look forward to your feedback.
A few weeks ago, Amnesty International published its Annual Report for 2004, citing human rights violations around the world.
Launching Annual Report 2004: War on Global Values – Human Rights Under Attack by Armed Groups and Governments, AI said that “violence by armed groups and increasing violations by governments have combined to produce the most sustained attack on human rights and international humanitarian law in 50 years.”
According to Agence France Presse, on May 26, 2004, Amnesty Slams “Bankrupt” Vision of US in Damning Rights Report, AI’s Secretary General Irene Khan stated that “governments and armed groups have launched a war on global values, destroying the human rights of ordinary people.” While governments have been obsessed with Iraq, she said, they have ignored the real weapons of mass destruction - injustice and impunity, poverty, discrimination and racism, the uncontrolled trade in small arms, violence against women and abuse of children.
In the Middle East, both Israel and the Palestinian Authority were taken to task for alleged rights violations, with AI stating that some actions by the Israeli army, such as the destruction of property, "constituted war crimes".
This month’s newsletter is dedicated to a discussion of human rights in Israel and the Palestinian Authority-controlled territories.
On May 17, the PA began calling for “women, children and the elderly” to stand in front of Israeli bulldozers and tanks in Rafah and make an “impassable barrier” despite the fact that it was an armed battle between the Israeli army and Palestinian terrorists. The call was answered by thousands of civilians, who marched directly into the heart of the battle. [Al-Ayyam, May 17, 2004]
Then, on June 6, PA TV displayed the pictures of two 15-year-old combatants holding an assault rifle and a pistol. It was reported that these children were killed while attacking an Israeli town in 2003, and have been honored by PA society for their deed as heroic Shahids (Martyrs). The text accompanying the picture of the dead children reads: "The Popular Resistance Committee proudly announce the falling of Shahids of the Great Islam."
Since 2001, more than 40 minors who were involved in planning bombings have been arrested. Article 38 of the 1989 UN Convention of the Rights of the Child states that “persons who have not attained the age of fifteen years do not take a direct part in hostilities.”
Reuters recently reported that the Arab League intends to cite Israel for war crimes and the violation of human rights, planning to bring these issues to the International Court of Justice. However, it is interesting to note that The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG), a Palestinian initiative to document violations of human rights against Palestinians, published the following:
An article in the New York Times (March 3, 2004) quotes Ziad Abu Amr , PA Minister of Information under Abu Mazen: “Israel bears a great deal of responsibility, but I blame the Palestinian Authority for not doing what it should. We see almost daily violations of public order and the authority does noting. There is no accountability.”
The Israeli army carried out an extrajudicial execution of Hamas' leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin on 22 March 2004 in the Gaza Strip and his successor Abdel Aziz Rantisi on 18 April. The March attack also resulted in the unlawful killing of seven other Palestinians and the injury of many more.
The Aksa Martyrs Brigade publicly executed Muhammad Daraghmeh, age 45, On July 2 in the town of Kabatiya. Since the beginning of the year, at least 15 Palestinians have been killed by Palestinian forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for collaborating with Israel.
More than 130 members of the Palestinian security forces protested against epidemic levels of corruption among senior officers. They stated that in addition to stealing salaries and supplies, senior officers were turning the security forces into private fiefdoms. They also stated that the children and wives of officers had been put on the payroll of security agencies. They requested immediate reforms and the dismissal of the PA security chief.
Of course, Israel is no stranger to financial corruption. An article on the website www.intellectualconservative.com by Ariel Natan Pasko (January 6, 2004) emphasises that “Israel must reform itself until scandal and corruption are an exception…” Rarely a day goes by without an Israeli newspaper reporting about the prime minister’s questionable loans, the ex-prime minister’s phony organizations, double voting and bribery in the Israeli Parliament. Then there’s Israel’s electric and water company employees with the highest paid salaried workforce in the country – twice the national average.
According to Pasko “industrial democracy in Israel is a farce.” A small group of oligarchs run the unions, decide when to strike and essentially hold the Israeli economy hostage. It is interesting to note that Israel has one of the highest number of annual strike days of any country in the world.
Israel claims that the separation fence/wall currently under construction, which consists of fences and concrete walls, is intended to prevent the passage of terrorists into Israeli territory. “Israel has a right and duty to protect its civilians from attack, but it must not use means that entail indiscriminate punishment of entire communities,” said Joe Stork, acting executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch, where and when? “Israel’s separation barrier seriously impedes Palestinian access to essentials of civilian life: work, education and medical care.”
The Human Rights Watch briefing paper argues that the barrier imposes arbitrary and excessive restrictions on the freedom of movement of tens of thousands of Palestinians and violates Israel’s obligation under the Geneva Conventions to ensure the welfare of the population under occupation. However, it is interesting to note that a recent report by Israeli police shows that local crime and incidents of suicide bombings have been reduced significantly since the construction of the fence.
According to a new Freedom House study, “Freedom of the Press 2004: A Global Survey of Media Independence”. Israel is the only Middle Eastern country with a free press. Of the 19 Middle Eastern and North African countries, only one, Israel, is rated "Free," with 90% of the countries in the region rated "Not Free."
UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women states that "violence against women' means any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women… whether occurring in public or in private life."
Murdering women to preserve family honour is a phenomenon of Arab and Palestinian society. Burned Alive, an autobiographical account, recently published in the UK by Bantam Books, describes how Souad’s brother set her on fire. Unmarried and pregnant, her story reveals the horror of repression of women.
See a review of the book Burned Alive on the Prism Group website.
Palestinian women have also been forced to become suicide bombers to preserve family honour. See the stories of Andalib Taqtaqah, Ayat Al Akhras, Reem al-Riyashi and many more.
Please visit our site and help direct others to the existing fact sheets. If you have ideas for fact sheets that you believe we should investigate and compile, please write to us at: .
Volume 1, Issue 13 April - May, 2004Newsletter Archives < Return to Archives Index
The Prism Group continues to focus on several key issues and is pleased to see that its efforts are causing “spectrums of awareness” in many places. This month’s newsletter widens our scope throughout the Middle East. We look forward to your feedback.
The Middle East has been replete with stories of massacres, actual and claimed, over the past decades. To name but a few: the deaths of nearly 600 Christians in Damour in 1976 at the hands of Palestinian combatants; the slaughter of Sunni Muslims in Homs, Syria, in 1982; the false claims that Israel killed 500 Palestinians in Jenin in 2002; and the horrific excesses of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
The following is a summary of events did not receive wide media attention or even comment in the UN. You are encouraged to write to your local papers and demand proper coverage of world events. Write to your elected representatives, church leaders and to human rights organizations. Ask them to take a firm stand.
Fallujah is a Sunni town, 35 miles west of Baghdad. According to US Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt: "This was a city that profited immeasurably ... under the former regime. They have a view that somehow the harder they fight, the better chance they have of achieving some sort of restorationist movement”.
The situation in Fallujah took a turn for the worse on March 30 when four US private contractors were ambushed and murdered. Indymedia.com reported that there were hundreds of civilian deaths and the Coalition partners were horrified.
The facts are somewhat different. As reported by BBC Radio on April 29, the regions of Fallujah and Najaf, have been identified as planning centers for many of the atrocities carried out against Iraqi citizens, Coalition troops and others. In order for Iraq not to be victimized by another despotic Hussein-style regime, the country must be drawn towards the axis of democracy.
Sadoun al-Dulame, a Baghdad-based political scientist, has noted that: "You can never forget that in this area retaliation is the fundamental element of the tribal system, its focal point. This is a revenge culture where insults to people's honor will always be repaid with violence."
Syrian Football massacre. Al Jazeera reported that on March 14, 14 Kurds were killed when violence broke out in the northern Syrian town of Qameshli during a football match. The next day, at demonstrations held to protest the murders, five more Kurds were killed by riot police.
A website called Rojname.com explained that during the football match some fans began waving a Kurdish flag. (About 160,000 Kurds have been denied Syrian nationality, meaning they cannot vote, own property, go to state schools or get government jobs.)
Syrian state broadcasting reported that the government had appointed a committee to investigate reasons behind the rioting. It said the riots damaged "the stability and security of the homeland and the citizens" and were the fault of "some intriguers" who had adopted "exported ideas".
However, this does not explain the home video shown on a few television channels days later. The video showed Syrian security forces opening fire randomly on unarmed citizens frantically fleeing the area.
(This newsletter was written as reports came in about explosions in Damascus).
A New Palestinian Massacre. The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG) has been highly critical of Israel’s activities in recent years. In April 2004, PHRMG turned its attention to internal Palestinian violence. (see http://www.phrmg.org/intrafada.htm). It noted that although hundreds of Palestinians have been killed or injured since 1993 by local Palestinian militia, the statistics include the dead and injured in attacks blamed on Israel. However, the American Humanist Association reported that this type of statistical skewing has been common since the first Intifada.
Sudan. And the list goes on. Estimates show that thousands of native black Africans, mostly settled farmers, have been killed in an apparent ethnic-cleansing policy that has been recently instituted in Western Sudan. Hundreds of thousands of black Africans have been uprooted from their villages and forced to abandon their traditional farmland to lighter-skinned Muslim Arab Sudanese citizens. Nevertheless, Sudan has just been elected to the UN Human Rights Commission.
The new UNRWA director in Lebanon, Richard Cook, recently announced that there are no plans to reduce services to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon – despite media reports to the contrary. Lebanon’s Daily Star on line quotes Cook as saying: “We have no measures and no policy on the reduction of services. Far from it, in Lebanon of this year we have increased our services…. This year it is the highest funding that we have ever got…. But it’s not keeping pace with the costs…”
At the same time, Cook is earnestly trying to ensure that donors’ money is being used appropriately. In a brave break with previous UNRWA traditions, Cook is demanding the political slogans be removed from UNRWA run schools. It has also been reported that he has dismissed UNRWA officials for stealing food rations.
These policy initiatives are to be welcomed, especially compared to the disastrous arrangements in the Gaza region. Here, there are documents and pictures showing how UNRWA resources have been consistently misappropriated over years by local Palestinian mafia. UNRWA facilities have been used by gunmen and schools have become recruiting grounds for combatants.
The Prism Group, which has written on UNRWA in the past (e.g. see http://www.theprismgroup.org/UNWRAPA.htm), supports Cook’s efforts.
On March 17 the New York Times printed an article by the venerable William Safire reporting how Claudia Rosett, another Times journalist had exposed a cover-up in the office of the U.N. secretary general -- a multibillion dollar financial fraud that has become known as the Iraqi oil-for-food program. According to Rosett, U.N.'s secretive oversight of more than $100 billion in Iraqi oil exports and supposed humanitarian imports was "an invitation to kickbacks, political back-scratching and smuggling done under cover of relief operations."
Kofi Annan's right-hand man, Benon Sevan, headed the oil-for-food program. When confronted, Sevan cited a hundred audits in five years, but he refused to give any details.
Now, the whole scam has been brought to light by free Iraqis in Baghdad. Detailed accounts have been reported by The Times, The Wall Street Journal, and London's Daily Telegraph.
Assistant Secretary General Sevan, now on an extended vacation until his retirement next month, denied through a spokesman "that I had received oil or oil monies from the former Iraqi regime". However, The Journal produced a document in Arabic suggesting Sevan received 1.8 million barrels of oil.
It seems that nearly 75% of the program suppliers raised their prices to pay a 10% kickback. These included European manufacturers, Arab trade brokers, Russian factories and Chinese state-owned companies. Estimates of the corruption cost: $2.3 billion.
Annan's office was stonewalling the press until an irate Iraqi Governing Council hired the accountants KPMG and a law firm to investigate what its advisers called "one of the world's most disgraceful scams."
In early March 2004 the Brussels-based European Institute for Research on the Middle East reported that Britain and other European states gave the Palestinians more than 20 million Euros to provide legal and technical advice for final status negotiations with Israel. Britain, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway paid the funds to the PLO Negotiations Aid Department’s (NAD) Negotiations Support Unit (NSU), which in the absence of peace negotiations, was accused of pursuing a propaganda campaign which proposed policies frequently contradicting the five countries' stated foreign policy objectives.
The Institute asked several of the states for details of the targeted aid they provided to the PLO for the final status negotiations. According to its research director, Dr. Nick Lambert: "Various ministries sought to block our investigation, and some refused to cooperate altogether, yet still claimed a policy of transparency- until we uncovered classified reports which suggested the opposite."
Lambert says financial aid to the PA created a situation in which European countries continue to fund activities which often run directly counter to other areas of their governments’ foreign aid strategies. Lambert also notes, following the NSU funding exposure, its legal advisor, Diana Buttu, in an April interview with the BBC, continued to make false statements, presenting Hamas as neither a terrorist organization nor committed to a charter which seeks to destroy Israel. She appeared to ignore the fact that Hamas’ bombing campaign had caused her own international benefactors to declare Hamas a terrorist organization several months earlier.
Please visit our site and help direct others to the existing fact sheets. If you have ideas for fact sheets that you believe we should investigate and compile, please write to us at: .
Newsletter Archives < Return to Archives Index
Volume 1, Issue 12
March-April, 2004
The European Union Parliamentary Working Group on Budgetary Assistance to the Palestinian Authority finally tabled its findings and recommendations at the end of March 2004.
This newsletter is dedicated to that report.
One of the most important issues that The Prism Group has investigated is the issue of how the Palestinian Authority is using funds donated by the European Union and elsewhere. It was clear when we began our initial report that the Palestinian people were not benefiting from these vast amounts of money. Much of this money was being diverted elsewhere. There was substantial documentary proof, as provided by organizations as diverse as Human Rights Watch and the Israeli Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.
Almost from the beginning, we joined the call for an investigation into the alleged misuse of European funds, fearing (and suspecting) that these funds were making their way to supporting terrorist activity, rather than the humanitarian and educational purposes to which they were promised.
Following an initial investigation, we produced a Position Paper supporting the call for a convening of a Parliamentary Committee of inquiry into the alleged misuse of funds supplied to the Palestinian Authority by the European Union.
Instead of a formal inquiry, the European Union decided to create the “Working Group on Budgetary Assistance to the PA” in March 2003. A year later, the results were ready and should be received with mixed emotions.
There is appreciation that the European Union took our concerns and the concerns of many others seriously enough to establish the Working Group. There is disappointment that the conclusions reached were not always a reflection of the evidence presented. There is concern that the Palestinian Authority will still not reform their economic and political activities to be more in line with what one would expect. And there is sadness over the continued lack of urgently needed resources to help ordinary Palestinians, for whom the European funds were intended.
Finally, there is confusion.
How is it possible that the Working Group was unable to find any evidence of European funding being used for what it calls "illegal activities including the financing of terrorism", and yet it was able to make more than ten different recommendations for ways to improve the handling of finances transferred from the EU?
What is equally disturbing is that the Working Group was unable to provide a set of united conclusions. 6 of the 13 members produced their own minority report. This lambasted the system of direct handouts, implying that money was thrown away into the hands of those seeking to destabilize rather than to help the Palestinians.
The Prism Group was proud of its efforts in being among the first to reach out to the Members of the European Parliament and demand that the Palestinian Authority be held accountable to the Palestinian people, who deserve the funds allocated to them.
Ultimately, we are left to conclude that the Working Group’s reports raise more questions than they answer. Once again, the sad losers are the Palestinians. As a leading World Bank official noted last month, they have received per capita the largest transfer of financial resources in history, yet they still need to ask for more. The Prism Group continues to insist that European taxpayers want to know where their money is going.
Toward this end we urge you to contact Members of the European Parliament. Ask them to implement all recommendations of the Working Group’s report that increase the controls over funds provided to the Palestinians. You can find the details for your MEP by first clicking on the country or political party total at http://wwwdb.europarl.eu.int/ep5/owa/p_meps2.repartition?ilg=EN&iorig=home, and then selecting one of the names which are listed in the response.
In the first half of April 2004 two new reports came to light, which boldly illustrate the failure of European policy towards helping the Palestinians.
1) The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Center (PHRMC), established in December 1996 by a diverse group of well-established Palestinians, savagely condemned the lack of social and political norms in Palestinian Authority administered areas. (See http://www.phrmg.org/intrafada.htm). The issue is that the EU has always claimed that it has been able to promote reforms through its donations. These reforms are nowhere in evidence. The policy has failed.
This report was backed up by the startling claims of Mohammed Dahlan, a minister in the government of Abu Mazen. Quoted in the UK newspaper, “The Times”, the former head of the Palestinian Authority's Preventative Security Forces in the Gaza Strip referred to Palestinian abuses committed during the Intifada: "Arafat's era is over and it is time for him to go home."
2) It is generally accepted that overseas donors provide the vast majority of the PA budget. Amongst other expenses, they support that the wage structure of public servants, including the Palestinian Authority's National Security force, which is ultimately responsible to Chairman Yasser Arafat.
It appears that General Haj Ismail Jabber, the force’s commander, has been claiming salaries for 37,000 employees. A diskette recently provided to the Palestinian Finance Ministry reveals the names of only 30,000 people. The problem is that the general does appear willing to hand back the money. Of more interest is why the EU is refusing to ask for this money back from the PA. Surely, this is the least that the Commission can do on behalf of its own taxpayers?
Please visit our site and help direct others to the existing fact sheets. If you have ideas for fact sheets that you believe we should investigate and compile, please write to us at: .
Newsletter Archives < Return to Archives Index
Volume 1, Issue 11
February-March, 2004
The Prism Group continues to focus on human rights issues in the Middle East. It is pleasing to note that several topics that we brought to attention of opinion leaders in our various reports are now surfacing in the general public debate.
In the past few weeks there have been reports of increasing tension within the Palestinian Authority (PA). Demands for financial, political and social reform have been met with resistance from the old guard, who continue to reap the rewards of the Intifada. Meanwhile, it is the average Palestinian who is left behind. Below are five different kinds of denigration, often ignored by the western media.
a) Financial Mismanagement
It was recently reported that Chairman Arafat hastily exited from a meeting, where Prime Minister Mohammed Querei had remarked that the European Union has joined demands that PA police salaries must be paid by bank deposit rather than in cash. It seems that the Palestinian leader may eventually compromise here, thus limiting the amount of money that can be skimmed off to pay for other expenses.
In the words of Mr. Christopher Patten, the European Commissioner for External Affairs, “EU Direct Budgetary Assistance…. serve to finance the PA public expenditures in general…” As it is donor money which makes up the bulk of payments to the PA police, the EU must be very relieved that at least some of its contributions can be better accounted for at last.
While the EU sends approximately 20 million euros to the PA and sister organizations every month to support education and other social needs, a recent BBC investigation stated that the PA is using some of the money to pay members of a Palestinian militant organization, which has been responsible for carrying out homicide attacks. According to the newspaper “Scotland on Sunday”, Feb. 29th, The World Bank has now issued an ultimatum to the PA: Put an end to rampant corruption or lose hundreds of millions of pounds of vital foreign aid. The Bank’s top official in the region, Nigel Roberts, confirmed that the Palestinians were receiving the largest amount of money per capita in the history of foreign aid.
b) Deliberate Social Deprivation by “Friends”
On February 27, 2004, Reuters reported that people living in PA controlled areas are becoming increasingly critical of their leaders. This supports previous comments from the AP, late last year, that the Arab world is manipulating the Palestinian cause to the detriment of the people themselves. Reported again in the “LA Times”, on January 4, the article states that most Arab countries have denied citizenship, jobs and education to anyone claiming Palestinian ancestry. The article quotes 35-year-old Mohmoud Zahar: "We can't own a house, land or get a loan from the bank, despite the fact that I was born here (in Egypt) and have no idea what is Palestine”. A Cairo-based Palestinian writer, speaking in the same article says: "The language of the (Arab) governments and media is in one direction and the real practices on the ground are totally the opposite.”
Hisham Youssef, spokesman for the 22-nation Arab League, acknowledged that Palestinians live 'in very bad conditions,' but he said the policy is meant 'to preserve their Palestinian identity’. “If every Palestinian who sought refuge in a certain country was integrated and accommodated into that country, there won't be any reason for them to return to Palestine,” AP reported.
Jordan would be a clear exception to this pan-Arab policy, where Palestinians are granted full citizenship and rights. As a result, except the 13% living in UNRWA camps, Palestinians are being progressively integrated into Jordanian society without international welfare subsidies.
c) Denial of Basic Political Rights
Late in January 2004, the Ramallah-based Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy organized a two-day conference. The PISD is calling for the implementation of political and economic reforms in the PA, criticizing how the PA was handling negotiations with Israel. Some members lashed out at corruption and demanded major reforms in Fatah and the PA. Speakers included legislators, university teachers, political analysts, human rights activists and even Fatah leaders.
d) Coping with the Israeli Army
In Israel, a military tribunal has found an army officer guilty of negligence in the October 2002, as a result of which a Palestinian teenager died. According to Reuters, a statement from the military spokesman's office explaining the decision blamed the officer in the death of Ali Zaid, 16, of Nizlat Zaid, a village near the West Bank city of Jenin. It said that the officer, identified by the Israeli media as a captain, had fired at a wall to disperse stone-throwing demonstrators and that the bullet went through a window, hitting Zaid. He later died of his injuries. The court found "clear negligence," in the officer's behavior, the statement said.
e) A Breakdown of Society
On Feb. 28/04, the BBC reported that the Mayor of Nablus has resigned in protest at a rise in lawlessness. “Ghassan Shakaa accused the Palestinian Authority of failing to take action to stem rising violence in the city”.
Mr Shakaa, who is considered an ally of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, complained he was frustrated at watching Nablus descend into chaos. Shakaa said that his resignation was a “warning bell” to the PA because they are not doing anything for the city. In Nablus, the police have become ineffective and the streets are not safe from the increasing strength of local gangs.
Shakaa’s remarks may have been a harbinger. On March 1st, Reuters reported from Gaza that gunmen had killed “a prominent adviser to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. According to witnesses, unknown assailants gunned down Khalil al-Zebin, 59, a veteran journalist who advised Arafat on human rights and media issues.
Palestinian journalists have recently staged protests demanding that the Palestinian Authority investigate a recent series of attacks against them in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
It is clear that Palestinian suffering is not merely a result of Israeli action, as is so often crudely and simplistically reported in the media. The Palestinians deserve a democratic leadership, which will be responsive to the needs of its electorate and outline the way to reform.
Attitudes toward the press seem to have taken a turn for the better in Egypt, reports the BBC News, Feb. 23, 2004. President Mubarak has been quoted as saying that he will rescind the law that allows journalists to be imprisoned for libel, defamation or insults.
In a speech to participants at a journalists’ conference, which was read by the Information Minister, the Egyptian president reiterated his support of press freedom but also criticized foreign demands for reforms in the Middle East. Egypt, along with other Arab countries, is under increasing pressure from the US to take steps to improve their human rights records.
Emboldened by the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraqi women are pushing for political freedoms many of them have never enjoyed. Women, secular and religious, from all ethnic groups, are running for office and demanding a fair share of representation in a country, where they make up 60 percent of the population.
Yet new religious activism in Iraq has aggravated traditional attitudes about women's roles. The 18-member committee drafting the new constitution does not include any women. The council recently passed a nonbinding resolution calling for Shariah, or Islamic law, to govern family issues, which will damage the rights of Iraqi women.
This tale of events fits in with recent academic research. Forty years ago, write professors Phyllis Chesler and Donna Hughes in FrontPageMagazine.com (Feb. 24), American women launched a liberation movement for freedom and equality. “Today, women's economic and social participation is considered a standard requirement for a nation's healthy democratic development.”
However, according to these eminent professors, today Islamic fundamentalism threatens women all over the world. “Wherever they have gained power, Islamists have denied women their essential humanity and dignity.” They cite the exponential growth of the global sex trade as an example.
In another article on the same subject, Professor Hughes says: “A measure of Islamic fundamentalists’ success in controlling society is the depth and totality with which they suppress the freedom and rights of women. In Iran for 25 years, the ruling mullahs have enforced humiliating and sadistic rules and punishments on women and girls. Joining a global trend, the fundamentalists have added another way to dehumanize women and girls: buying and selling them for prostitution. According to the head of the Tehran province judiciary, traffickers target girls between 13 and 17, although there are reports of some girls as young as 8 and 10, being sent to Arab countries.
Please visit our site and help direct others to the existing fact sheets. If you have ideas for fact sheets that you believe we should investigate and compile, please write to us at: .
Volume 1, Issue 10Newsletter Archives < Return to Archives Index
January-February, 2004
The Prism Group continues to focus on several key issues and is pleased to see that its efforts are causing “spectrums of awareness” in many places. Our reports have been shared with a number of important government and political leaders around the world and we continue to receive inquiries and comments.
Press freedom and the integrity of reporting, especially relating to the Middle East, has been a recent worldwide focus. The UK is still absorbing the findings of the Hutton report, where BBC journalists were found to have failed to maintain standards of accuracy and had even introduced their own biases.
Ironically, the BBC had already been publicly srutinised only a few weeks previously. Robert Kilroy-Silk was fired immediately for slamming the governments of some Arab states for their support of homicide bombings, using amputation as a punishment, for repression of women and for a generally celebratory attitude towards September 11. Not only did this seem to strike against the idea of freedom of expression, it also sharply contrasted with recent comments by Tom Paulin. Using the BBC, he had strongly rebuked Jewish settlers in the West Bank – and called for the murder of Jews. Paulin’s actual words were: “Brooklyn-born” Jewish settlers on the West Bank “should be shot dead” because “they are Nazis” and “I feel nothing but hatred for them”. Paulin’s comments barely raised an eyebrow amongst his editors.
It is interesting that Kilroy-Silk is not alone in making his observations. According to Ibrahim Nawar of Arab Press Freedom Watch, in the last two years seven Saudi editors have been fired for criticising government policies. “To fire a British talk-show host for criticising Saudi policies is surely over-reaching even for the notoriously super-sensitive Muslim lobby.” The columnist Mark Steyn was so concerned about events at the BBC, that he wrote in The Daily Telegraph: “One reason why the Arab world is in the state it's in is because one cannot raise certain subjects without it impacting severely on one's wellbeing. And if you can't discuss issues, they don't exist.”
Everyone’s a martyr says PA. Also on the matter of freedom of the press, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has recently come under fire for imposing pressure on journalists. Apparently, the PA is demanding that all journalists who work for Arab satellite TV stations refer to Palestinians who are killed by the IDF as 'shaheeds' (martyrs) and refrain from voicing any criticism of the PA in their reporting. Yussef al-Qazzaz, a senior official with the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation, lashed out at Palestinian journalists for not placing the interests of their people above everything else, and dubbed some of them "primitive."
Qazzaz said he cannot understand how some Palestinian journalists make harmful remarks to their people at a time when even foreign journalists are careful not to alienate the PA. He was referring most specifically to Saudi-based newpaper, Al-Arabiya. In early January, Al-Arabiya's correspondent in the Gaza Strip, Seif al-Din Shahin, was attacked and wounded as he was driving his car in the center of Gaza City. He said the attackers identified themselves as members of Fatah.
Shahin said five gunmen fired warning shots into the air, intercepted his car, dragged him out, and beat him with the butts of their rifles. The attackers told him they were unhappy with his coverage of the paramilitary celebrations in the Gaza Strip marking the 39th anniversary of the founding of Fatah. He said that it was not the first time he had been targeted for his reporting.
Reporters Without Borders condemned the Gaza attack, reinforcing comments from its annual Press Freedom survey, which states that “the press freedom situation in the region in not encouraging.” Most unusually, this event sparked a demonstration in support of freedom of the press within the PA controlled areas. Let’s hope that this marks a new awakening of the freedom of reporting in the Middle East.
As a timely postscript, we note a complaint from Walid Al-Saggaf, Editor-in-chief of the Yemen Times. He has claimed that restrictive new laws are currently scheduled for discussion and a subsequent vote in Parliament.
A new generation of suppression in Saudi Arabia. There was an interesting survey out of Saudi Arabia this past month, which was reported in the Gulf News, January 15, 2004. The survey, which was based on classes from 10, male-only high schools demonstrate clearly that Saudi society is suffering from a fear of the outside world and its effects. Teen attitudes do not mirror the sweeping reforms sought by the Kingdom.
Based on the findings of the survey, there does not appear to have been any social progress in the past 20 years. For example, the answers reflect an obsession with women and their roles in society. One student stated that he thought there should be a prison for women who do not follow society’s customs, such as covering their faces. Another student suggested that women’s morals should be carefully checked.
The results of the survey suggest that there has been no progress in Saudi Arabia. Women are seen as objects to be controlled at all times.
Then, just this past week, the Saudi Arab News reported that Sheik Ayed Al-Qarni, a well-known Islamic scholar, publicly stated that it was not permissible for women to drive cars in Saudi Arabia. In fact, he said, he would not let his own daughters or sisters to drive, and then he gave a number of reasons for his point of view, including the following: “I do not see women driving cars in our country because of the consequences that would spring from it such as the spread of corruption, women uncovering their hair and faces, mingling between the sexes, men being alone with women and the destruction of the family and society in whole.”
Female Suicide Bombers. On January 19, Associated Press reported that Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin had announced a “new beginning” for Palestinian women. He was referring to a change in tactics being used by Islamic terrorist groups, who will increasingly dispatch female suicide bombers. Yassin’s announcement came just days after Hamas sent out its first female bomber, Reem Raiyshi, who left behind her two young children and blew herself up at the Erez checkpoint between Gaza and Israel. She killed three Israeli soldiers and a private security guard.
Later the same week, Reuters, UK reported that “a suicide bombing by a Palestinian mother of two in Gaza last week has brought to the surface criticism within Palestinian society of what one commentator describes as a culture of death. This suggests that the decision to send a mother to die seems to have crossed a new line. However, surveys have shown that most Palestinians support suicide attacks -- 61.8 percent according to a poll last October by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre.
However the theory that is now being put forward is that poverty and despair alone do not create terrorists. Nationally syndicated columnist Mona Charen recently commented that there is a new breed of female terrorists being created. In her article, Lady Killers (Jan. 23) she reports that Westerners cannot underestimate the power of ideas. In fact, more and more, the Arab and Muslim worlds encourage and even cater to the new female "martyrs": “In Pakistan, mothers of 'martyrs' are popular speakers. In Chechnya, a women's group called Black Widows is responsible for more than 165 murders by suicide. In March, an Arabic newspaper in London reported that Al Qaeda is setting up training camps just for women jihadis.”
This trend toward female suicide bombers is also reaching outside the Middle East. On December 10, 2003, a female bomber in Moscow killed six and the New York Times has recently reported that a terror attacked perpetrated by a female terrorist in highly likely.
On October 4, 2003, a female Islamic Jihad bomber killed herself and 22 others at Maxim’s restaurant in Haifa. This attack is considered by many to be the most successful bombing carried out by a woman.
It seems that the various Palestinian factions are becoming increasingly adept at forcing women into service for the cause. They seek out women who have already damaged their reputations either by choice or by force. With their family honour now compromised, they are either subject to family honour killings or redemption-by-martyrdom. For more on this subject you can refer to the Prism Group website, www.theprismgroup.org.
Without too much fanfare, OLAF, the self-regulatory body of the European Union is about to visit the Middle East. It is no secret that only about 10% of EU expenditure can be fully and openly accounted for. This unsatisfactory situation is revealed further when overseas aid is considered.
Since its inauguration, The Prism Group has argued consistently that foreign aid directed towards Palestinians has ended up in the pockets of men of violence rather than the man in the street. http://www.theprismgroup.org/euinquiry.htm.
Some estimates have calculated that in the past decade alone around $10 billion has been transferred to the PA by overseas donors, which have included the governments of Canada, the United States, Norway and Ireland, as well members of the Arab League. The largest single donor is probably the European Union, which by its own accounting has contributed over 4 billion EUR, either directly to the PA or through UNRWA or NGOs. Both of the latter groupings are known to be closely aligned to the PA.
In December 2003, the EU agreed at a meeting in Rome to transfer a further 40 million EUR in special aid. This can be added to the extra recent donations from the World Bank. And the British Parliament is also considering transferring funds along the model established by their European counterparts during 2004.
The Prism Group continues to ask, “where has the money gone?” We have been in correspondence with leading MEPs on the issue. One leading backbench MEP, who is involved with the ongoing reviews of transfers to the PA, wrote to us that certain large tranches of funds paid to the PA were not authorized by the European Parliament, and that “the system has a black hole in my opinion.” The sums involved are huge on any scale. They have been delivered to a comparatively small and dense populace. The PA is building neither hospitals nor schools. So what is happening to all this public taxpayers money in the hands of the Palestinian leadership?
We hope that the work of the OLAF delegation to the Middle East will finally begin to provide some transparent answers to these questions.
Christmas festivities, the New Year and the Jewish festival of Chanukah – the theme of freedom figures prominently in all these events. With this backdrop, The Prism Group has decided to dedicate the current edition of our newsletter to the issue of “Prisoners of War in the Middle East”.
We wish all our readers and volunteer researchers and writers Happy Holidays. May 2004 be a year blessed with peace and tolerance for all, and a year when all prisoners of war are returned to the warmth of their families, to peaceful times.
Background
The manner in which Saddam Hussein was apprehended, and his subsequent detention expose clearly the vastly different ways POWs are treated in the Middle East. He was not shot on sight, but arrested. The former Iraqi dictator was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, many who died as the result of weapons of mass destruction. It is now expected that he will be given a trial, which will be open to global scrutiny. Will he receive those rights he denied his own countrymen?
It would seem that the coalition is pushing, for political reasons, that Hussein be tried by the Iraqi people, rather than facing an international war crimes tribunal. It must be remembered that the Iraqi courts are still manned by the corrupt judges appointed by Hussein himself, during his three decades of misrule. Britain’s position is particularly interesting, as Hussein may have to face a death penalty if tried in Iraq, which is outlawed under certain European legal considerations.
The questions remain. How do you treat captured fighters? Do terrorists and those captured while volunteering to help other terrorists have the same rights as ordinary soldiers or even former political thugs? Where should POWs be tried and by what kind of a court?
Who Wants A Geneva Convention?
The Geneva Convention of 1950 is very clear, when stipulating the rights of captured combatants. Conversely, history shows how numerous states and leaders in the Middle East have paid only lip service to these internationally accepted ethics.
The examples are many. The horrendous treatment of POWs by both sides in the Iran – Iraq war of the 1980s has been well documented. The Turkish response to Kurdish rebels drew long and continuous criticism from the European Union and human rights groups. Going further back, in the October 1973 war, the Egyptians shot on site those Israelis soldiers who admitted to having fought in the previous war in 1967. And so the list goes on.
POWs in 2003
The issue of POWs has been raised again in recent months from three very different perspectives. Each story illustrates the specter of the potential abuse of human rights. Most recently, the American, British and Australian forces in Iraq went out of their way not to capture many of Saddam Hussein’s supporters. The preferred approach was “disarmament and speedy release” unless there were special circumstances. It is possible that this policy was developed after analyzing the consequences of the Afghanistan campaign against al-Qaeda and the Taleban. The prisoners were transferred to the Guantanamo base in Cuba, where they are allowed Red Cross visits. However, trial is a long way off for most and they have yet to be recognized as POWs as outlined by the Geneva Convention. The British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, called from the House of Commons for the Americans to address this issue urgently (Telegraph, Jan. 17, 2002), and it is known that President Bush is finally considering possible solutions to the issue.
Second, it is well-known fact that Israel is holding hundreds of Palestinians. Some of the largest camps are at Ofer, south of Ramallah, Megido, south of Haifa and at Ketziot near Gaza. Each detainee is accorded visiting rights, and the Red Cross has access to all the facilities on a continual basis. All those held are brought to trial. The proceedings are usually open, conducted within a reasonable period of time and take place accordingly to international standards.
In recent years, the High Court in Israel has been used repeatedly to protect the rights of prisoners. New rulings have restricted the possibility of abuse and torture, even when the person arrested may have information that could lead to the prevention of a terror incident. What’s more, the last several months have seen several petitions to the courts to release details of a secret prison, used at the beginning of the current Intifada. Certain details of the story were censured in Israel. While newspapers such as the Guardian did file specific reports including the location of the facility, no proof was offered to sustain claims of torture and mistreatment.
The third area concerns the fate of several Israelis captured or kidnapped by Palestinians and Arab militia over the past two decades. Media reports in the region and in Germany have revealed that there have been high-level contacts between Israel and the Hizbollah in order to secure their release in exchange for hundreds of Lebanese.
Three Israeli soldiers have been missing since the 1982 Lebanon War. Inconclusive evidence suggests that they died or were killed in captivity, that the Hizbollah is holding their bodies in Lebanon, and that the Hizbollah refuses to release any authentic information. A similar story can be told about three additional Israeli soldiers who were captured by the Hizbollah in 2000, as UN troops recorded the incident on camera. Then, several weeks later, the Hizbollah lured an Israeli businessman from Europe to Lebanon, from where he was kidnapped. He only received his visit from the Red Cross in August 2003, when he was reported to be unwell but stable.
The Role of the Public Servant
We noted above how the British Prime Minister has tackled the subject of the Guantanamo Bay detainees. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, is using his Christmas address to highlight the issues of prisoners’ rights in Cuba and in a South London jail. And in America, the “Padilla (Al-Muhajir) v Rumsfeld” decision stipulates that “the September 2001 declaration of war does not constitute authorization” to detain American citizens on American soil without giving them the same rights open to all citizens.
The Prism Group applauds all these attempts to ensure that justice is provided and in a correct manner. Yet, when all is considered, it often seems that it is only the famous or those who are citizens of a powerful country that can benefit from these protestations.
Consider Ron Arad, an Israeli air-force navigator, who was captured in Lebanon in October 1986. After being transferred amongst several Palestinian factions, an act illegal under the Geneva Convention, he was eventually removed to Iran. He is believed to be held in solitary confinement in Tehran. No visitation rights. No trial. Forgotten by Blair, the Archbishop, Bush and other proponents of prisoner rights.
The Prism Group continues to highlight the issues of religious minorities in the Middle East. On the positive side, we welcome the opening of the new Mar Elias University in the Galilee aimed primarily at the Christian community in the region. One of the University’s missions notes that “…acknowledgement and respect for difference builds upon the resources and richness of diversity.”
Unfortunately, Jordan continues to impinge on the religious rights of its Christian population. The Hizbollah continue to impose its hegemony of Christian villages in Southern Lebanon. And the London Daily Telegraph has reported how the diminishing Christian minority in Bethlehem is now the subject of another tax imposed by the Palestinian Authority. These and other worrying trends need to be brought to the attention of democratically elected leaders.
The Prism Group is shocked to read about the treatment of Afsaneh Nowrouzi of Iran, who has been sentenced to death for killing her attempted rapist. The story, highlighted in Women’s e-news December 22, 2003, illustrates that women who face rape have almost no legal recourse under Iranian law.
Please visit our site and help direct others to the existing fact sheets. If you have ideas for fact sheets that you believe we should investigate and compile, please write to us at: .
Our web site is www.theprismgroup.org.
Newsletter Archives < Return to Archives Index
Volume 1, Issue 9
December, 2003
Christmas festivities, the New Year and the Jewish festival of Chanukah – the theme of freedom figures prominently in all these events. With this backdrop, The Prism Group has decided to dedicate the current edition of our newsletter to the issue of “Prisoners of War in the Middle East”.
We wish all our readers and volunteer researchers and writers Happy Holidays. May 2004 be a year blessed with peace and tolerance for all, and a year when all prisoners of war are returned to the warmth of their families, to peaceful times.
Background
The manner in which Saddam Hussein was apprehended, and his subsequent detention expose clearly the vastly different ways POWs are treated in the Middle East. He was not shot on sight, but arrested. The former Iraqi dictator was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, many who died as the result of weapons of mass destruction. It is now expected that he will be given a trial, which will be open to global scrutiny. Will he receive those rights he denied his own countrymen?
It would seem that the coalition is pushing, for political reasons, that Hussein be tried by the Iraqi people, rather than facing an international war crimes tribunal. It must be remembered that the Iraqi courts are still manned by the corrupt judges appointed by Hussein himself, during his three decades of misrule. Britain’s position is particularly interesting, as Hussein may have to face a death penalty if tried in Iraq, which is outlawed under certain European legal considerations.
The questions remain. How do you treat captured fighters? Do terrorists and those captured while volunteering to help other terrorists have the same rights as ordinary soldiers or even former political thugs? Where should POWs be tried and by what kind of a court?
Who Wants A Geneva Convention?
The Geneva Convention of 1950 is very clear, when stipulating the rights of captured combatants. Conversely, history shows how numerous states and leaders in the Middle East have paid only lip service to these internationally accepted ethics.
The examples are many. The horrendous treatment of POWs by both sides in the Iran – Iraq war of the 1980s has been well documented. The Turkish response to Kurdish rebels drew long and continuous criticism from the European Union and human rights groups. Going further back, in the October 1973 war, the Egyptians shot on site those Israelis soldiers who admitted to having fought in the previous war in 1967. And so the list goes on.
POWs in 2003
The issue of POWs has been raised again in recent months from three very different perspectives. Each story illustrates the specter of the potential abuse of human rights. Most recently, the American, British and Australian forces in Iraq went out of their way not to capture many of Saddam Hussein’s supporters. The preferred approach was “disarmament and speedy release” unless there were special circumstances. It is possible that this policy was developed after analyzing the consequences of the Afghanistan campaign against al-Qaeda and the Taleban. The prisoners were transferred to the Guantanamo base in Cuba, where they are allowed Red Cross visits. However, trial is a long way off for most and they have yet to be recognized as POWs as outlined by the Geneva Convention. The British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, called from the House of Commons for the Americans to address this issue urgently (Telegraph, Jan. 17, 2002), and it is known that President Bush is finally considering possible solutions to the issue.
Second, it is well-known fact that Israel is holding hundreds of Palestinians. Some of the largest camps are at Ofer, south of Ramallah, Megido, south of Haifa and at Ketziot near Gaza. Each detainee is accorded visiting rights, and the Red Cross has access to all the facilities on a continual basis. All those held are brought to trial. The proceedings are usually open, conducted within a reasonable period of time and take place accordingly to international standards.
In recent years, the High Court in Israel has been used repeatedly to protect the rights of prisoners. New rulings have restricted the possibility of abuse and torture, even when the person arrested may have information that could lead to the prevention of a terror incident. What’s more, the last several months have seen several petitions to the courts to release details of a secret prison, used at the beginning of the current Intifada. Certain details of the story were censured in Israel. While newspapers such as the Guardian did file specific reports including the location of the facility, no proof was offered to sustain claims of torture and mistreatment.
The third area concerns the fate of several Israelis captured or kidnapped by Palestinians and Arab militia over the past two decades. Media reports in the region and in Germany have revealed that there have been high-level contacts between Israel and the Hizbollah in order to secure their release in exchange for hundreds of Lebanese.
Three Israeli soldiers have been missing since the 1982 Lebanon War. Inconclusive evidence suggests that they died or were killed in captivity, that the Hizbollah is holding their bodies in Lebanon, and that the Hizbollah refuses to release any authentic information. A similar story can be told about three additional Israeli soldiers who were captured by the Hizbollah in 2000, as UN troops recorded the incident on camera. Then, several weeks later, the Hizbollah lured an Israeli businessman from Europe to Lebanon, from where he was kidnapped. He only received his visit from the Red Cross in August 2003, when he was reported to be unwell but stable.
The Role of the Public Servant
We noted above how the British Prime Minister has tackled the subject of the Guantanamo Bay detainees. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, is using his Christmas address to highlight the