Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination holds meeting with non-governmental organizations

Committee on the Elimination
of Racial Discrimination

14 February 2012

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination this morning held an interactive dialogue with non-governmental organizations from Mexico, Israel and Kuwait. The reports of those three countries will be reviewed by the Committee this week.
Representatives of non-governmental organizations in Mexico raised a number of issues concerning Mexico’s indigenous population, which had less access to healthcare and education and whose lands were invaded, polluted and threatened with destruction by large-scale resource extraction projects. Another representative said the report of Mexico lacked a gender perspective and noted that indigenous women suffered from sexual abuse and discrimination, especially in domestic work.

The nine non-governmental organizations on Israel stressed the issue of racial discrimination faced by Arab and Palestinian citizens in Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the Occupied Golan Heights. House demolitions and forced eviction in those areas was a form of inhuman and degrading treatment suffered by many Palestinians. Another issue was the prohibition against Gaza claimants and lawyers restricting their access to Israeli courts and justice. One organization cited accumulated evidence that the crime of apartheid had been and continued to be practiced by the State of Israel and called on the United Nations to consider reconstituting the Committee of Apartheid to investigate the situation. Another speaker stressed the lack of access to water points and grazing lands of the Bedouin indigenous people, which had become Israeli military areas, settlements and natural parks and had led to a decline of the economic situation of the community. Over the past five years 40 new laws and bills with discriminatory elements had been enacted and not only had there been no improvement of human rights but rather a mainstreaming of human rights violations had occurred. There was a lack of legal protection for racial groups and noted that there was no official recognition in Israel of the concept of indigenous people.

A representative of a non-governmental organization in Kuwait stressed the plight of the Bedouin minority who lived as stateless people inside Kuwait. The Bedouin were denied the right to acquire nationality and could not demonstrate peacefully. Recently more than 71 Bedouin prisoners were arrested while protesting peacefully for their rights and continued to be been detained. The Bedouin also suffered from discrimination and access to education and housing. The representative called on the Committee to make recommendations to the Government of Kuwait to improve the situation of the Bedouin.

Speaking during the discussion were representatives from Centre Prodh, Comite de America Latina y el Caribe para la Defensa de los Derechos de la Mujer (CLADEM), Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICHAD), Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), Russel Tribunal on Palestine, Adalah, Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality, Al-Haq, Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights (BADIL), Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre of Norwegian Refugee Council, a Representative of the Bedouin Jahalin Community and the Kuwaiti Bedouin Movement.
The next meeting of the Committee will take place this afternoon, Tuesday, 14 February at 3 p.m. when the Committee will begin consideration of the sixteenth and seventeenth periodic reports of Mexico (CERD/C/MEX/16-17).
Statements on Mexico
Center Prodh said that Mexico’s most marginalized regions continued to be those with the highest indigenous population. Indigenous people had less access to healthcare and education, their lands were invaded and polluted and even sacred sites were threatened with destruction by large-scale resource extraction projects with no appropriate process of consultation. Center Prodh focused on the current case of Mr. Hugo Sanchez, which was representative of many cases against indigenous people, and asked the Committee to recommend Mexico not only free Hugo Sanchez but that his case before the Supreme Court should serve as a turning point to mark an end to the arbitrary and discriminatory detention of innocent indigenous people in Mexico.
Comite de America Latina y el Caribe para la Defensa de los Derechos de la Mujer (CLADEM) said it deplored the fact that general recommendation 25 was not included in the report of Mexico and noted that the report lacked a gender perspective. In the report, women, people of African descent and disabled persons were categorized under a general chapter of other groups. Indigenous women suffered from sexual abuse and discrimination; there were higher rates of illiteracy among indigenous women, over four times the national average. Domestic work was a key issue for indigenous women who suffered discrimination in this type of work.

Questions by Experts

Committee Experts asked about reports of forced sterilization of indigenous women, the situation of violence in the region of Oaxaca and on the conditions for migrant workers. Had indigenous communities known about or applied Convention 169 of the International Labour Organisation, which was the legal framework to support the rights of indigenous people? Experts asked for an update on the situation of migrant workers in Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, specifically women who suffered abuse. How extensive was human rights training of officials? What was the condition of people of African descent in Mexico? An Expert asked if there had been any proceedings against Mexican non-governmental organizations for refusal to provide the names of their sources of information, notably arrests. Finally, an Expert asked about a legal decree in Mexico that would make international human rights treaties superior to domestic law and could be used in the Hugo Sanchez case.

Response from Non-Governmental Organizations

In reply to the question on community violence in Oaxaca, a speaker said two individuals had lost their life defending their community against the threat of mining exploitation. Concerning the application of Convention 169 of the International Labour Organisation, Mexico had often not implemented its own laws or international laws concerning the economic exploitation of indigenous people. Migrant workers continued to experience high levels of violence and were categorized as gangsters by the police. Concerning migrant women, considerable abuse occurred throughout Mexico, notably Honduran women travelling by train in Mexico were highly vulnerable to violence and sexual abuse including abduction by the federal police and being held for ransom money from their husbands.

A speaker said that discrimination against indigenous people came not only from cultural attitudes but also from the policies of the Government. Despite human rights training Mexico suffered from a situation of impunity and failure to prosecute crimes committed by the police against indigenous people. The report noted that there were 450,000 people of African descent, mostly in the South of the country, but some academic groups said that these people could amount to as much as nine percent of the population. Constitutional reform prioritized international human rights treaties and there was hope that Mr. Hugo Sanchez’s case would be a pilot case for such human rights legal reform.

Statements on Israel

Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICHAD), said that Israel should be held accountable for the protracted Occupation of the Palestinian territory. Since 1967 Israel had demolished more than 26,000 Palestinian homes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory thus effectively foreclosing any viable Palestinian state. In 2011, a record year of displacement, a total of 622 Palestinian structures had been demolished by Israeli authorities, of which 36 per cent were family homes, resulting in displacement of over 1,000 people. House demolitions and forced eviction were a form of inhuman and degrading treatment with severe psychological consequences for men, women and children. All refugees and internally displaced persons who had been forcibly displaced should be allowed to repatriate, return to their homes and be compensated for any harm they suffered, including the destruction of their land, homes and property.

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), said that Palestinians had been denied access to justice by the prohibitions against Gaza claimants and lawyers and restriction of their access to Israeli courts, through the closure of Gaza and monetary barriers. The systematic violations of Palestinian human rights occurred through an environment of impunity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the Committee should call on Israel to immediately guarantee that all Gaza claimants could appear before Israeli courts, and to permit family visits for prisoners.

Russel Tribunal on Palestine said that there was accumulated evidence that the crime of apartheid had been committed by the State of Israel. The Committee should approve the finding of apartheid outlined in the report of the Russel Tribunal on Palestine. The United Nations should consider reconstituting the Committee of Apartheid to investigate the situation in Israel. The representative asked if a State that had disregarded opinions issued by the World Court could still be considered as a member of the international community.

Adalah, said that there were concerns of racial discrimination against Palestinian citizens, who accounted for 20 per cent of the population of Israel. Family unification of Palestinian citizens was denied by the high court of Israel. The State had an obligation to revoke laws that denied housing to Palestinian citizens. Indigenous peoples, notably the Arab Bedouin living in the Negev, lacked basic services such as access to health, education and water, and were forced to live in settlements.

Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality, said the Bedouins in the Negev region were increasingly subject to racist policies and practices in order to increase the Jewish population in the region. The Bedouin were denied essential services, had experienced forced demolition of homes and 45 Bedouin villages were considered to be illegal. At the same time Jewish farms were retroactively confirmed and ten new Jewish settlements had been approved. Thousands of Bedouin families faced forced displacement under the proposed Prawer-Amidror Plan that was formulated with limited input from the Bedouin community and approved by the cabinet on 11 September.

Al-Haq, said that over 60 per cent of the West Bank did not have a single drop of water allocated to Palestinians. Unequal and discriminatory practices had led to a limited access to water in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. In some areas the Palestinian population had access to less than 25 litres per person per day, significantly below the minimum amount of 100 litres per person for day necessary for human dignity. Israeli water policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories constituted an act of apartheid in relation to Article 3 of the Convention, with the intent of the domination of one racial group over another. The Jewish settler society enjoyed access to water which the Palestinian population did not have.

Resource Centre for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights (BADIL), said that Israel distinguished between Jewish and Arab nationality which provided the basis on which polices were applied. For example Jewish nationals benefited from legal rights that Palestinians could not access, including residential rights, land ownerships, freedom of movement, and the right to return to their home country. Israel divided the Palestinians into further categories that determined their access to more basic services and rights. Only Jewish nationals had full access to human rights in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which was a form of apartheid.

Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre Norwegian Refugee Council, said that racial discrimination occurred through forced displacement and housing polices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Palestinian communities had no access to planning decisions concerning their villages and faced expensive and bureaucratic procedures to challenge Jewish settlements. Discrimination was manifested in Area C of the West Bank where 70 per cent of the land was allocated to Israel, and in West Jerusalem there was a 70 to 30 per cent Jewish to Arab demographic master plan, which led to an unequal treatment of Arab citizens and to forced relocations.

Representative of the Bedouin Jahalin Community, said that the Bedouins of East Jerusalem and the West Bank were a part of the Palestinian community which was displaced by Israel in 1948 as the original indigenous owners of the land. The livelihood of the Bedouin community was dependent on pastoral grazing but since 1948 a lack of access to water points and grazing lands which had become military areas, settlements and natural parks had led to a decline of the economic situation of the community. The Committee should recognize the Bedouin community as a people displaced under occupation. The Bedouin community should have a voice in resettlement and eviction policies that impacted them.

Questions by Experts

A Committee expert asked if the non-governmental organisations of Israel representing civil society had read the declaration of independence of the State of Israel. The expert stressed that that was a fundamental question because in the entire declaration of independence, the people of Palestine were not mentioned and therefore neither they nor the nation of Palestine could exist in legal terms. Concerning the allegations of the practice of apartheid in Israel, could more information be provided? Had the law on citizenship and entry to Israel restricting access to citizenship for Palestinians been appealed to the Supreme Court? Committee experts were impressed by the Russel Tribunal on Palestine proposal and noted that the Golan Heights should also be considered. Had there been a qualitative jump or improvement since 2010 when the new Government had come into power in Israel? Experts asked if Israel recognized the concept of indigenous peoples.

Response from Non-Governmental Organizations

In response to the questions, the speakers said that the basic law of Israel had not dealt with plurality, equality or apartheid and therefore reflected the constitution. Apartheid as defined under the Convention could come in many different forms and its impact was not always the same. It was important to note that the Israeli Government had legitimized apartheid through Israeli legislation which embedded discrimination against Palestinians in both the Occupied Palestinian Territories and in Israel itself. The international community should recognize that apartheid was practiced in Israel.

Over the last five years 40 new laws and bills with discriminatory elements had been enacted. Furthermore, health clinics that had been opened in the 1990’s in the Bedouin areas by order of the courts in Israel were recently closed requiring non-governmental organizations to take court action to prevent closures. The State used the excuse of security to explain discriminatory laws when in many cases there were demography rather than security issues, which was a code word for valuing Jewish over Palestinian citizens. In 2006 the Supreme Court of Israel refused the petition on the law of entry into Israel as being illegal and discriminatory, and a recent return to court and another rejection meant that families had been separated for a decade.

The Golan Heights was an illegal annexation of territories that occurred thirty years ago. There had been no improvement of human rights in Israel but rather a mainstreaming of human rights violations. There was no official recognition in Israel of the concept of indigenous people and the Prawer Plan put increasing pressure on the Bedouin in the Negev. There were 22,000 Syrians living in the Occupied Golan Heights who had unequal access to water. There had been no development of cities there in the past thirty years, and the most basic rights in access to land and housing were limited.

Statement on Kuwait

Kuwaiti Bedouin Movement, said that the Bedouin lived inside Kuwait as stateless people. Over ten years ago the Committee recommended Kuwait find a solution to the problems faced by the Bedouins. The Bedouin should be given the right to acquire nationality and should not be denied their right to demonstrate peacefully, nor be detained for more than 24 hours. Today over 71 Bedouin prisoners had been detained for more than 30 days. Human Rights Watch last month said that the Government of Kuwait had punished peaceful protestors who were asking for their right to nationality. The Bedouin suffered from discrimination; during British occupation, the Bedouin had the right to citizenship but since independence, the Bedouin were denied not only citizenship but all human rights including access to education and housing. The Government had established a Committee to settle the issues of the Bedouin without referring specific cases to the courts. The Universal Periodic Review of Kuwait had provided many recommendations to the Government to reform their approach to the Bedouin, but nothing had been done to improve the situation.

Questions by Experts

A Committee Expert asked for an explanation on the origins of the Bedouin and what had been the legal pretext used to deny citizenship to the Bedouins.

Response from Non-Governmental Organization

In response, a representative said that the Bedouin were the same ethnic origin as all Kuwaitis Arabs, and were mostly from Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iraq. The Government had until recently permitted Bedouin tribes to move between Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iraq and once it forbade that movement the people of these tribes were made stateless.
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