September/October 1993, Page 63

Human Rights

By Andrea W. Lorenz

World Conference Delegates Urge Support for Bosnia

Despite an agreement not to discuss individual countries' grievances, representatives from 172 nations who gathered in June to attend the World Conference on Human Rights could not ignore Bosnia's agony. Held in Vienna, the meeting was the first global human rights conference to be convened in the post-Cold War period. Led by Pakistan and other Muslim nations, representatives of 88 countries called upon the United Nations to "take forceful and decisive steps," including lifting the arms embargo on the Bosnian government. The resolution also called on the U.N. Security Council to take "effective measures" to reverse Serb territorial gains and urged use of force to implement a U.N-backed peace plan that would reshape Bosnia into a sovereign state.

The U.S. took a "hands-off" attitude and was one of 54 countries that abstained from the affirmative vote to aid Bosnia. Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs John Shattuck suggested that the "human rights catastrophe" in Bosnia was no worse than many taking place in other countries. "There are human rights crises throughout the globe," he said, urging other countries to avoid creating a "hierarchy of human rights catastrophes."

Women formed a well-organized bloc at the conference, particularly in discussions of gender-based abuses. The plight of Bosnian women who have suffered systematic rape and torture as prisoners of Serbian military forces received particular attention. At a day-long "tribunal," 26 women from 25 countries—including two from the former Yugoslavia—provided horrifying accounts of government-sanctioned abuses they or their countrywomen had endured. The delegates demanded that the United Nations take action.

As a result, the Vienna Declaration and Program of Action includes a provision calling for integration of the equal status of women and their human rights into the "mainstream of United Nations systemwide activity." It states that "violations of the human rights of women in situations of armed conflict are violations of the fundamental principles of international human rights and humanitarian law." The declaration calls for an "effective response" to such violations, and urges all signatories to ratify by the year 2000 the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

Director Dorothy Thomas of the Women's Rights Project of Human Rights Watch said at the conference that she would have preferred even stronger support in the declaration for the principle of the universality of human rights. Nevertheless, she said, "the stature of women's human rights work has been greatly enhanced. "

Conference delegates also vowed to fight hunger and poverty. Paragraph 13 of the Vienna Declaration affirmed that "extreme poverty and social exclusion constitute a violation of human dignity and that urgent steps are necessary to achieve better knowledge of extreme poverty and its causes, including those related to the problem of development, in order to promote the human rights of the poorest." The declaration calls on richer countries to increase aid to the poorest countries. The World Conference also called upon the international community "to make all efforts" to alleviate the external debt burden of developing countries.

Malnutrition in West Bank and Gaza

Israel's sealing off of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip has depleted the incomes of thousands of Palestinian families, according to separate reports by Harvard University scholar Sara M. Roy and American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) President Peter Gubser, both of whom recently returned from the area. In response to attacks on Israelis in March, the Israeli government sealed off the West Bank and Gaza Strip, barring 130,000 Palestinians from their jobs inside Israel. Some 800,000 people are now imprisoned in an area of about 360 square kilometers.

"For the first time since 1967, a large and growing number of people in the Gaza Strip and West Bank have permanently lost their jobs," wrote Roy in her article "Apartheid, Israeli-Style" (The Nation, July 26-Aug. 2, 1993). Many Palestinian families have used up their personal savings, and consumption of all goods has fallen dramatically. "Sales of red meat have dropped by 70 to 90 percent," she wrote. "Overall food purchases (except for basic commodities) have declined by 50 to 70 percent." UNRWA officials estimate that the West Bank is losing $2 million and the Gaza Strip $750,000 a day in wages.

Because many families are unable to purchase even basic foodstuffs, signs of malnutrition are appearing among Palestinian children. "On my last trip to Gaza, in January, teachers in UNRWA schools told me that more and more of their students eat only one meal a day," wrote Roy. "The specter of widespread hunger and severe malnutrition looms over the Palestinian community."

The official Israeli reaction to the crisis came from Health Minister Haim Ramon who said, "I do not understand the basis for the claim that we are obligated to provide employment for the Palestinians. We have no responsibilities toward them."

The Gaza Center for Rights and Law blamed Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for the "worst year" in human rights abuses in Gaza. Since the beginning of 1993, Israeli soldiers have destroyed 182 families' homes with anti-tank missiles and explosives. In addition, more than 800 Palestinians, 347 of whom were under the age of 16, were injured by the Israeli army during June.

Discovery of Israeli Medical Form Provokes Calls for Reform

A "Medical Fitness Form" which asked Israeli army doctors to certify prisoners' fitness for torture was discovered by chance on a physician's desk and became a smoking gun for human rights activists. The form, issued by the Department of Interrogation, asked physicians the following questions: "Are there any limitations to the prisoner's stay in an isolated cell?" "Are there any limitations to the prisoner's chaining?" "Are there any limitations to wearing head/eye cover?" and "Are there any limitations to prolonged standing?"

Israeli attorney Tamar Peleg discovered the form filled out by an Israel Defense Force doctor after he examined her client, a 26-year-old Palestinian detainee named Ribhi Shuker. The doctor had certified that there were no limitations to Shuker's being placed in an isolation cell, wearing a hood, being chained, or being forced to stand for prolonged periods, and Shuker was transferred to the Shin Bet interrogation center. There he was hooded, beaten, and had his hands and feet tied together behind his back.

As a result of the controversy, the 12,000-member Israel Medical Association published the form in its newsletter, and in June Dr. Miriam Zangen, head of the association, sent a letter to Prime Minister Rabin saying doctors would be "complying with torture" if they filled out the forms. The association's medical ethics committee announced it would open an investigation of any doctor who complied.

At a mid-June conference in Tel Aviv on "The International Struggle Against Torture and the Case of Israel," many of the 500 mostly Israeli participants attested to Israel's practice of torture. Although the practice is not new, it received formal authorization in the 1987 report of the Israeli government's Landau Commission, which approved the use of "moderate physical pressure" to extract information from prisoners. Neve Gordon, head of the Association of Israeli Palestinian Physicians for Human Rights, testified that one fourth to one-half of the 10,000 Palestinians imprisoned each year are tortured in order to extract confessions.

As a result, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel has launched a campaign to gather signatures on a petition condemning torture. The petition blames tactics of Israel's General Security Service (GSS) for at least 5 of the 17 deaths—including 3 listed as suicides—that occurred during investigations in 1988 and 1989.

In a further development, left-wing lawmakers in the Israeli Knesset proposed a bill that would outlaw torture of Palestinian prisoners and provide jail terms ranging from one to seven years for convicted torturers. Furthermore, evidence obtained by interrogators through torture would not be legal in court.

Israel Challenges Amnesty's Report

Amnesty International's 1993 World Report states in its section on Israel and the occupied territories that in 1992 the Israel Defense Force arrested 25,000 Palestinians on security grounds—with more than 10,000 imprisoned at any one time. Several hundred more, it says, were administratively detained without charge or trial. Among them were Palestinian and Israeli prisoners of conscience, including conscientious objectors to military service. The report notes that "Palestinians under interrogation were systematically tortured or ill-treated and four died in circumstances related to their treatment under interrogation."

The Israeli army responded that Amnesty's report was "disturbing" and accused the human rights organization of failing to give a fair account of Palestinian attacks against Jews and fellow Arabs. An IDF spokesman complained: "This report doesn't differentiate between the effort the IDF must make to maintain security and public order in the territories in a legal framework, and the uninhibited acts of murder by terrorist organizations and gangs that don't see themselves subject to any moral or legal restraints at all." In fact, the Amnesty report had noted a rise in "deliberate and arbitrary" killings by armed Palestinian groups.

To back its assertions, the Israeli Defense Ministry published a new book entitled Israel, the Intifada and the Rule of Law, which defends Israeli practices in the territories. The book argues that Israel meets and often surpasses Western human rights standards and claims that "Israel is more sensitive to law than any other occupier in history."

Censorship in Lebanon

Middle East Watch reported in June that the Lebanese government of President Elias Hrawi is enforcing tight censorship over the Lebanese press. In April and May the government shut down one television network and three daily newspapers.

The government accused the ICN television station of fomenting sectarian strife by charging Prime Minister Hariri with attempting to Islamize Lebanon. Middle East Watch speculates it was ICN's regular airing of views critical of both the Lebanese and the Syrian governments which led to its shutdown.

The newspaper Nida al-Watan was accused of the same offense as ICN. If convicted, its publisher, Mohammed Shams Al-Din, faces three years in prison.

The left-of-center daily As-Safir was closed for publishing an Israeli working paper presented at the Middle East peace negotiations in Washington.

Al-Sharq was closed after it published an unflattering cartoon of President Hrawi's family. Insulting the president is an offense that can be punished by a three-year prison sentence. Middle East Watch noted that Al-Sharq was closed despite its openly pro-Syrian policy.

The newspapers have since been allowed to republish, pending judicial review. However, the television network, ICN, has not been allowed to renew operations.

According to Middle East Watch, in 1992 the Hrawi government banned 138 private associations. In addition, the government has asserted police control over all non-periodical publications including plays and films, all of which must be submitted to the police for approval before being distributed.

Andrea W. Lorenz is the features editor of the Washington Report.