Georges Abdallah: Justice Delayed, Again
This is the winding road that the leader of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions has had to take in the French justice system. (Photo: Haytham al-Moussawi)
By Bassam Alkantar | Al Akhbar | January 15, 2013
“We don’t think he [Georges Abdallah] should be released, and we are continuing our consultations with the French government about it…We have serious concerns that he could return to the battlefield.” This according to a statement from Victoria Nuland, spokesperson for the US Department of State, on Friday, 11 January 2013.
This was more than an enough of a hint for the socialist government in Paris to block the decision to release Abdallah, who, from today, 15 January 2013, is essentially a hostage at the Lannemezan Prison.
Yesterday, Abdallah was supposed to appear one last time before the French judge, to be read the terms of his conditional release, which requires him to be deported from France. But French Minister of Interior Manuel Valls refused to sign Abdallah’s deportation order.
One judicial source said that the Sentence Enforcement Chamber of Paris (TAP), which held a hearing on Monday to evaluate the 8th request for parole submitted by Abdallah, “has not yet made a decision pending the deportation order.”
On 21 November 2012, the TAP had approved Abdallah’s request for parole on the condition that he be expelled from France. On 10 January 2013, the Court of Appeals in Paris upheld the TAP’s ruling, and rejected the appeal submitted by the French Public Prosecution, settling the controversy regarding its final and unequivocal decision to release Abdallah.
The sudden French move triggered many questions. For instance, is it possible for the French interior minister to completely block the procedures for the Lebanese prisoner’s conditional release? And, will the French prosecution be able to appeal the parole ruling again, having lost the appeal battle?
A French legal source familiar with the case of Abdallah in Paris told Al-Akhbar that political considerations had trumped legal ones after the interior minister’s move. Usually, he affirmed, the authorities may refrain from deporting a foreign national if it suspects that the country of destination, whether it is the foreigner’s home country or a third country, may mistreat or torture him.
In this event, the authorities often respect the wishes of the foreigner to be deported, to remain under house arrest or in refugee facilities, after serving his or her sentence.
The source added, “In Georges Abdallah’s case, the opposite is true. The Lebanese government has expressed on several occasions its willingness to receive him.”
Concerning whether the prosecution can appeal the parole ruling again, the judicial source said that this was unlikely, but stressed that the interior minister’s insistence on not signing the deportation order practically meant that Abdallah’s release has been obstructed.
This is not the first time that legal proceedings have clashed with political calculations, which makes Abdallah’s case the “scandal of the age,” in the words of Yves Bonnet, the former head of French intelligence services (DST). Since 1999, Abdallah has met all the conditions that make him eligible for parole, something that prompted the French judicial authorities to revisit his case several times over the past years.
As it turns out, there are five parole requirements stipulated in the French Penal Code. The first condition is good conduct in prison, which Abdallah has met according to the testimony of the French court itself.
Second, there has to be someone providing him with assistance in case he is released, a requirement that is met as per the documents that have been provided by Abdallah’s family, at the request of the French authorities, since 2003.
Third, the parolee must be able to pursue a vocation, a condition already satisfied by Abdallah, who is part of the Lebanese Ministry of Education’s teaching cadre.
Fourth, the parolee must be in good mental health, which, according to the reports of Abdallah’s psychiatrist, has been fulfilled.
Finally, the parolee must not pose a threat to French society, a requirement that the judiciary has undertaken to fulfill by ensuring that Abdallah is deported by the French interior ministry to Lebanon, or any third country that agrees to host him.
It was this requirement that the French interior minister exploited on Monday, in reverse fashion, to block the Lebanese prisoner’s conditional release.
A History of Abdallah’s French Court Rulings
On 19 November 2003, the parole court in the French district of Pau agreed to release the Lebanese national. The move angered the French Public Prosecution, which rushed to appeal the decision at the request of the justice minister. It succeeded in having the ruling suspended by the court in Pau.
On 16 January 2004, the National Parole Court reexamined the case. However, the court came under pressure from the French justice minister, who in turn was under US-Israeli pressure. Abdallah was subsequently denied parole.
On 31 January 2006, the court refused to release Abdallah after prosecutors argued that France’s image would be undermined with the US and its allies should it release him.
The prosecutors further claimed that Abdallah’s deportation would not guarantee that he wouldn’t return to the same types of acts he carried out in the past and that the psychiatrist’s report was insufficient in this regard.
While he may be in good mental health, they argued, what guarantee was there that he would not return to “terrorism”? (As though Abdallah is a common criminal or a drug addict who is being treated to quit his habit.)
The prosecution gave another reason for opposing Abdallah’s release, namely that he had not paid compensations to the victims, estimated by the court to stand at 53,357 euros, bearing in mind that his family has pledged to pay all such compensations.
On 6 February 2007, Abdallah requested parole for the 7th time only to be rejected once again. Abdallah appealed the ruling, but a decision was postponed until April 2008. The surprise was that the judges, instead of pronouncing the appeal verdict, decided to refer Abdallah’s case from the parole court to a special committee.
On 17 June 2008, Abdallah’s case was referred to a “special committee” in accordance with the provisions of Dati’s Law. Abdallah was formally notified of this, and the committee was set to issue its ruling in September 2008. The ruling was postponed yet again to 9 January 2009 when the court rejected the parole request.
This is the winding road that the leader of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions has had to take in the French justice system. Yet Monday’s court session was one of its most sinister junctures.
So will Jacques Vergès, Abdallah’s lawyer, play the ace up his sleeve and demand a retrial? He most definitely will if Abdallah is not released come January 28.
Mleeta, Khiam, Sabra, Shatila and Resistance In General
By Gilad Atzmon | January 8, 2013
Lebanon is incredible – an intoxicating blend of natural beauty, rebellious spirit, pious clarity, tolerance, wild night life and unbelievable hummus. I landed in Beirut four days ago. The purpose of my visit wasn’t all that clear. I knew that a talk and a musical performance were scheduled by Almayadeen TV, but I never expected such a spiritually transforming experience.
It was my second visit to the country. 30 years ago I crossed the Lebanese border along with an IDF convoy escorted by tanks and armed vehicles. Then I was an occupier, this time I came with only my saxophone and a desire to share my thoughts and deliver some beauty.
But it didn’t take me a couple of hours to realise that Lebanon is much more than just humus, shisha, the sea and some captivating rural scenery. Early on Friday we left Beirut for the south. Our first stop was Mleeta – a Hezbollah front line outpost and a symbol of Lebanese defiance. Mleeta is located on top of a mountain, surrounded by the South Lebanese Massif which, until 2000, was controlled by the Israelis. From Mleeta, the Lebanese Mujahedeen launched daily attacks against the Israeli invader and gave the Israelis a true taste of their own medicine. Now Mleeta is a Jihadi tourist resort, there to tell the story of the heroic Hezbollah, those brave paramilitaries that confounded the ‘best army in the world’. The truth is, though armed only with light weapons, they were well supplied with Shia, spiritual ammunition.
Mleeta provides an overview of three decades of Islamic resistance in Lebanon and, in exhibiting all that the fleeing IDF soldiers have left behind, it proudly demonstrates the reality of Israeli cowardice. Mleeta is a symbol of confidence – confidence that the IDF is gone, never to return. Because when, in the summer of 2006 Hezbollah routed the IDF, it also demolished their confidence forever. The Jewish state was taught a lesson it would never forget – their phantasmic expansionist dream had come to an end.
But Mleeta was just a beginning. South Lebanon is dripping with defiance – every village, house and person is an emblem of Shia’s heroic resistance with the villages bedecked with Hezbollah posters featuring Leader Hasan Nasrallah and the many martyrs who taught the IDF those very necessary lessons.
Like Mleeta, Khiam the notorious Detention Centre is also a monument to Israeli brutality. Khiam is where Israel detained and tortured its political opponents, in some cases, for as long as 14 years. My visit there reminded me of a devastating memory, which on occasion, I share with my audience. It concerns Ansar, an Israeli concentration camp located in South Lebanon. It was back in 1984, on a piece of flat land in the middle of the camp, I noticed a dozen concrete boxes with small metal doors, they looked like dog kennels being only about 80 cm high, 100 cm long and probably about 80cm wide. When I pointed out to the commanding officer that these concrete construction weren’t suitable for dogs, he told me not to worry: no one would even think of putting dogs in them. “Put a Palestinian in one of those for 24 hours,” he laughed, “And he’ll come out singing the Hatikvah.” They were solitary confinement units for Palestinian prisoners. That was it. Then and there, I realised that Israel was not my country.
In Khiam this week I saw the exact same Israeli torture facility where the Israelis would shove their political opponents into tiny metal boxes, lock them in for days and then occasionally hit the top with a heavy stone. This time I took a picture.
But someone in Israel must have felt some shame at what Israel was leaving behind in Lebanon. In 2006 the IDF attempted to erase all trace of the detention centre at Khiam. In a desperate attempt to hide Israeli brutality, Israel sent in its engineering squads to blow up the cells and all remaining evidence of torture. But that clumsy effort to conceal the true reality of Israeli inhumanity achieved only the complete opposite. It now only affirms that Israel has, indeed, a lot to conceal.
The journey to occupied Palestine’s Border is over the most beautiful, wild and rural terrain. But then, suddenly, we were there, faced with the Jewish ghetto walls, guarded by cameras, army posts and barbed wire. Israel clearly doesn’t even try to convince its neighbours that it belongs in the region. It looks different, it smells different, it sounds different – it is in fact, just one extended Jewish European shtetl that has matured into a neurotic, psychotic and murderous collective fuelled by PRE traumatic stress. In that regard, the Israelis indeed have great deal to keep under wraps.
Inspired by Lyotard’s “Heidegger and the Jews” and my visit to the south, I decided, in my talk in Beirut, to speak about ‘History as a form of concealment.’ Instead of telling us ‘what really happened’, I argued that history is there to hide our shame, to repress that which we cannot even utter. It is, in effect, there to make us forget. Jewish history, for instance, is there to suppress Jewish shame, to disguise that which Jews prefer to hide from themselves. Jewish history is an attempt to talk about the past while avoiding the horrendous and embarrassing fact that Jews, throughout their history, have been bringing on themselves one Shoa after the other.
But concealment wasn’t invented by the Jews. The Brits also find it hard to cope with their past chain of murderous imperial genocides. This may explain why they entrusted the writing of Churchill’s biography to Jewish Zionist Sir Martin Gilbert, and why their historians have dedicated a whole floor of the Imperial War Museum to the Nazi Holocaust. As if Brits do not have enough shoas and suffering inflicted on others to remember. One of those British-inflicted shoas is obviously the Palestinian Nakba. Britain should own up to this disaster and perhaps find a little room for it also in its Imperial Museums. And like Britain, the Israelis have yet to acknowledge their own role in the original sin of 1948.
Looking at the state of the refugee camps in Lebanon, it became very clear to me that the Lebanese also might engage in some soul searching. For 65 years Palestinian refugees have lived in Lebanon and in other Arab countries in unbearable conditions and have suffered terrible discrimination. Palestinian refuge camps in Lebanon are nothing short of hell on earth. Palestinians cannot be naturalized. They are banned from certain professions and jobs such as medicine and law. In some ways, their situation is worse even than their brothers’ in Gaza or The West Bank, because for them there is not even any prospect of hope or change.
Those endless solidarity discussions about ‘One State’, ‘Two States’ or ‘BDS’ have zero significance or impact on their lives or their livelihoods. These displaced and dispossessed people need immediate change in their political status, but, being excluded from the political process, they lack the wherewithal to bring such change about. Not able to travel, their voice is hardly heard within the Western solidarity discourse and the International Palestinian solidarity movement is hardly engaged, or even concerned with their tragedy. Even that most absolute of rights, the right to return to their land has been compromised by the BDS in Ramallah and other prominent Palestinian leaders.
On my last day in Beirut I visited Sabra and Shatilla. I saw the mass graveyards, I saw the poverty, I saw the piles of rubbish in the streets, the outcome of the complete absence of even the most elementary municipal services. I have been traveling around the world for many years but this is, without doubt, one of the saddest sights I have seen. But, in those camps, I also saw some of the kindest people on this planet. People who against all odds, in spite of being crushed, humiliated and tortured for more than six decades, still look forward, still live their lives. They raise their kids and care about their education. They greet you in the warmest possible manner and, no sooner have you approached their shop, they have invited you for coffee. Surely, their suffering must be our primary concern.
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US Resolution Presses EU to Designate Hezbollah a “Terrorist Organization”
Al-Manar | January 4, 2012
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution urging the European Union and its member states to designate Hezbollah a ‘terrorist group’.
The resolution, approved on Wednesday, urges the European Union member states to also impose sanctions on Hezbollah, the Times of Israel news website reported.
Based on the resolution, which was co-sponsored by 85 House representatives, Hezbollah would be prevented from employing the territories belonging to the European Union for fundraising, recruitment and training.
On July 24, 2012, the European Union flatly rejected an Israeli call to blacklist Hezbollah as a “terrorist group”, because it regards Hezbollah as an active political party in Lebanon and there is not enough evidence to warrant listing the Lebanese group a ‘terror group’ as the United States does.
European countries argue that their relations with Lebanon, where Hezbollah provides extensive social services and its political wing holds government power, would be damaged by the designation. Among the 27 European Union member states, only the UK and the Netherlands are in favor of the designation, which would freeze the group’s Europe-held financial assets.
Egypt seeks to forge tight relations with Hezbollah, envoy to Lebanon says
Press TV – December 29, 2012
Egyptian Ambassador to Lebanon Ashraf Hamdy says his country plans to forge “tight” relations with the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah.
“You cannot discuss politics in Lebanon without having a relationship with Hezbollah,” Hamdy said in an interview with the Lebanese newspaper Daily Star published on Saturday.
In a clear policy shift from Egypt’s Mubarak-era policy, the envoy described the resistance movement as “real force on the ground” with “big political and military influence.”
Hamdy said that the government of President Mohamed Morsi would pursue a policy to stretch “[its] hand out in the proper, balanced way to all regional powers” including Hezbollah, in order to forge “tight” contacts with Lebanon’s rulers.
Hamdy also said that he had met with Hezbollah’s political bureau members in efforts “to understand each other better.”
“Resistance in the sense of defending Lebanese territory … That’s their primary role. We … think that as a resistance movement they have done a good job to keep on defending Lebanese territory and trying to regain land occupied by Israel is legal and legitimate,” he said.
The relations between Egypt and Hezbollah reached rock bottom in 2008 during the previous Gaza war, when Hezbollah Chief Seyyed Hasan Nasrallah criticized Cairo for failing to support Palestinians. The ties generally were strained under former President Hosni Mubarak, in large part due to Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel.
Egyptians launched a revolution against Mubarak’s regime in January 2011, which brought an end to over three decades of dictatorship by him in February 2011.
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Lebanese pilgrims kidnapped in Syria: The untold story
By Nadezhda Kevorkova | RT | December 21, 2012
A group of Syrian rebels have been holding Lebanese civilians hostage for nearly seven months. The kidnappers keep issuing new demands, claiming they have captured “subversives from the Lebanese Hezbollah party.”
The hostages’ relatives deny the charges, saying those captured are elderly and poor, have families and are generally apolitical. They also expressed frustration at how Western mass-media has only aired the kidnappers’ side of the story.
During this seven-month period, the hostages were allegedly ‘killed by Assad’s bombs,’ but then miraculously ‘rose from the dead.’ The conditions of their release have been continually changing: First, the kidnappers turned down a $50 million ransom; they then demanded the families demonstrate against Hezbollah, and asked Hezbollah chief Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah to apologize to the Syrian people; finally, they suggested bartering their hostages for an Al-Qaeda leader.
But at the heart of this cloak-and-dagger saga are clues to how the Syrian captors managed to demand a ransom of $50 million after proclaiming Ankhar Kochneva, a Ukrainian-Russian journalist of Palestinian descent, to be a spy for three different countries simultaneously.
A bargain bus tour hijacked
On May 22, 2012, a group of Lebanese pilgrims on a bus were returning to Beirut from Mashhad, a city in northeastern Iran. Syria was relatively peaceful at the time. Some of the passengers were accompanied by their wives and daughters; one young man was chaperoning his elderly aunt.
In Aleppo province, their bus was stopped by a group of Syrian rebels who then abducted the passengers, claiming they were Hezbollah subversives who had illegally crossed the Syrian border.
The following passengers of the bus remain in captivity:
Ali Skheb, 63: Physically impaired, suffers from heart failure.
Jamil Saleh, 65: Spent the last 30 years working for Saad Hariri, known to be a major supporter of the Syrian rebels. Suffers from epilepsy and is prone to fainting fits. Recently underwent surgery for a spinal disc herniation.
Ali Abbas, 30: Owner of a hookah shop, who supports both himself and his younger brother. The brothers are parentless as well as homeless, and use their shop as living quarters. Ali suffers from epilepsy.
Hassan Arzune, 56: A street vendor who peddles sweets for Ramadan and owns a shop with a floor area of 1.5 sq. meters.
Hassan Hammud, 45: Painter and floor waxer, the proud owner of an antique stone-floor polisher that consists of an iron frame and a water tank. The kidnappers believe Hassan to be a specially trained sabotage and demolitions expert.
Muhammad Monzer, 22: Gas station attendant who borrowed money for the trip in order to accompany an elderly aunt, who dreamed of taking a pilgrimage.
Abbas Shuyab, 41: Pilgrimage broker who organizes bus tours to Iraq and Iran.
Abbas Hammod, 60: Retired Lebanese Army soldier, suffers from neurological disorders.
Ali Termos, 50: Works as a salesman in a small grocery shop.
It is possible the Syrian opposition is unable to distinguish either insurgents or rank-and-file Hezbollah party activists just from their outward appearances. However, few in Lebanon believes that the hostages are members of Hezbollah.
The kidnappers did their best to comply with the rules of Islam: They immediately released all the women – including wives, daughters and the aunt – and allowed those abducted to pray and fast freely.
The captors went as far as agreeing to a meeting between the hostages and two of their family members, who were allowed to make a video on how well the kidnappers were treating the abductees. In the footage, they were shown to be wearing casual clothes and sitting on sofas in broad daylight. They even released two hostages who appeared to be in bad health.
During the first month they ate canned tuna, boiled eggs on the second and chickpeas on the third. Later, their diet slightly improved.
The remaining captives are now confined a room with no windows.
Towards the end of Ramadan, online sources reported that Oqab Saqr, a Lebanese MP from the Hariri bloc, had allegedly received $50 million from Saudi Arabia to pay as ransom for the hostages. Mona Termos, the wife of one of the prisoners, went to the Saudi embassy to find out if the rumors were true.
“On that very day Abbas Nasr, an Al Jazeera correspondent, called me only to yell that I was to blame for disrupting a mission to release the prisoners,” Termos said. “Later, he came and said that I must go live on air to disprove that news. But I said it is up to the ambassador to do it.”
Three days later, the events took a new turn: “We were told that the location had been bombed, leaving four people dead, including my husband! Then the Lebanese Foreign Ministry started an inquiry, and the families took to the streets – and that’s when that information was refuted. Did they rise from the dead?” she said.
And two days after that, the kidnappers’ leader Abu Ibrahim confirmed to NewTV channel that he had been offered the $50 million. “Yes, they did offer $50 million but I refused to take it. It is a matter of principle rather than money,” NewTV quoted him as saying.
Ibrahim now communicates regularly with the media, which interviews him through Skype and the telephone, and even dispatches film crews from New York to record his statements.
Ibrahim’s first demand was for the release of the Lebanese hostages in exchange for Hussein Harmoush, an army defector and one of the founders of the rebel Free Syrian Army. He then demanded that Hezbollah chief Nasrallah apologize to the Syrian people and publicly support the rebels. Currently, there is no evidence suggesting that the pilgrims are connected to Hezbollah.
Ibrahim then called on the families to rally against Hezbollah in front of Beirut’s Syrian and Iranian embassies. The families fulfilled the demand, rallying at the embassies and writing letters to ambassadors. The Iranian embassy’s workers told them that 48 Iranian pilgrims were being held in a similar situation: They were abducted by Syrian rebels under the pretext that they were members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards corps.
Nasrallah then addressed Lebanon, expressing support for the Syrian people and asking them to demonstrate what shape that support should take.
Those kidnapped are occasionally allowed to call their families with a cell phone that has a Turkish number. Those who were freed from captivity and their visitors claim that the building where hostages are held is within sight of the Turkish border.
“The Turkish authorities could’ve easily found them. But they insist that they’ve no idea where the hostages are held. How do journalists find them then? They all get there across the Turkish border,” the relatives said.
A week ago, Ibrahim made a new demand to the relatives, asking them to rally to free both Hussein Harmoush and Syrian opposition member Tal al-Mallohi.
The families of the hostages expressed frustration at Ibrahim’s apparent hypocrisy in his attempts to free political prisoners. “Nobody should be imprisoned for his or her views, the more so women. Abu Ibrahim, you are committing the same deeds you say yourself you are against! How can I trust the Syrian revolution if you deprive innocent people of their freedom?” the pilgrims’ wives said. Western media have yet to report on their remarks.
NYT journalists traveled to Syria to investigate the hostage-taking and managed to make their way to Ibrahim, but did not contact the captives’ wives and daughters in Beirut. One of the journalists did eventually call the family of the hostages – not to interview them, but to inform them about a video published on the newspaper’s website containing new conditions for the hostages’ release. The relatives were told that the captors are now demanding that 200 political prisoners, including an Al-Qaeda leader from Jordan, be released from Lebanon’s prisons.
“Through a US newspaper they are demanding a release of an Al-Qaeda leader? And to release political prisoners in the Lebanon? But there are none in Lebanon!” the hostages’ family members said. “We are free to say whatever we want, and nobody will pay any attention to that. There are criminals, drug dealers, but no political prisoners. Everybody knows that.”
Abu Ibrahim has promised to clarify the demands, and to fax the names of the two prisoners that will be transferred to Lebanese authorities.
That message has yet to arrive.
US pressures Europe to label Hezbollah a “terrorist group”
Press TV – October 27, 2012
The chief counterterrorism adviser to the US President Barack Obama is putting pressure on the European Union to label the Lebanon resistance movement Hezbollah as a “terror group”.
John O. Brennan on Friday criticized the European for its failure to join the United States in designating the Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
Brennan also said that Iran and Syria should be punished for supporting Hezbollah.
On July 24, The European Union flatly rejected an Israeli call to blacklist Hezbollah as a terrorist group, despite being under pressure from the US.
The EU regards Hezbollah as an active political party in Lebanon. It says there is not enough evidence to warrant listing the Lebanese group as a “terror group” like the United States.
Led by France, Europeans countries argue that their relations with Lebanon, where Hezbollah provides extensive social services and its political wing holds government power, would be damaged by the designation.
Currently, among the 27-EU member states, only the UK and Netherlands are in favor of adding Hezbollah to the EU list of terror which would freeze the group’s Europe-held financial assets.
The renewed pressure from the US comes only weeks after Hezbollah Secretary-General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah confirmed that the Lebanese resistance movement had sent a drone into the Israeli airspace.
The aircraft crossed hundreds of kilometers above the sea and entered the occupied territories from southern Palestine and flew over several Israeli strategic sites without being detected by Israeli Air Force’s radars, he said.
Security analysts say the incident indicates that the Israeli military is incapable of handling a surprise attack despite the numerous military maneuvers regularly conducted by the regime.
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Terrorist attack in Beirut meant to sow discord in Lebanon: Iran
Mehr News Agency | October 20, 2012
TEHRAN – The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast condemned on Friday the recent terrorist bomb attack in Beirut, in which a number of civilians lost their lives and many others were injured.
Mehmanparast said that the attack was intended to sow discord among various Lebanese groups.
“This act has been done with the aim of creating rift among various factions in Lebanon,” he stated, adding, “And this act has been done by those elements who have never cared about the interests of the Lebanese people and government and do not think about anything other than their evil objectives.”
Mehmanparast called for an immediate identification and punishment of the perpetrators of the attack and sympathized with the bereaved families and the Lebanese nation and government.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman also called on all Lebanese groups and parties to prevent the realization of the enemies’ plots through demonstrating vigilance and unity.
He added that it is the Zionist regime, which is the “main enemy” of the people in Lebanon and other regional countries, that “undoubtedly” benefits from “insecurity and instability” in the region.
UN should urge Israel to stop violating international law: NAM
Mehr News Agency | October 17, 2012
TEHRAN – In a statement read out at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on Monday, Iran and other members of the Non-Aligned Movement called on the UN Security Council to act and demand that Israel immediately stop violating international law.
The statement was read out by the Iranian ambassador to the UN, Mohammad Khazaee, on behalf of the NAM member states, during an open debate about the situation in the Middle East, including the question of Palestine.
Iran assumed the rotating presidency of NAM for a three-year term on August 30.
Following are excerpts of the text of Khazaee’s speech:
The Non-Aligned Movement remains firm in its conviction of the urgent need for the international community to act resolutely and collectively to fulfill its longstanding commitment to, and responsibility for, the realization of a just solution to the question of Palestine in all its aspects on the basis of international law and the terms of reference of the peace process, including the resolutions of the council.
The movement remains resolute to continue assisting the Palestinian people in their legitimate quest for dignity, justice, and their inalienable right to self-determination in their independent state of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital. This issue is long overdue and its continued postponement will only put that goal further out of reach.
The movement supports fully the application submitted by Palestine on 23 September 2011, for membership in the United Nations and considers it to be consistent with the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and independence.
The movement remains concerned about the ongoing and intensifying acts of violence, terrorism, and racist hate crimes, demolition of houses, revocation of residency, attacks on towns and villages across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, excavations under Al-Aqsa Mosque and storming the Mosque compound, firing stun grenades at Palestinian worshipers, the latest of which took place on Friday 5 October 2012 causing many injuries among Palestinian worshipers as well as the uprooting of olive and other trees by illegal Israeli settlers.
The Non-Aligned Movement expresses grave concern regarding the deteriorating situation and deplorable conditions of thousands of Palestinian prisoners and detainees unlawfully held in Israeli jails and detention centers, including at least 300 children as well as women and elected officials, and calls for their immediate release.
The Non-Aligned Movement reiterates its call for the Security Council to act and demand that Israel, the occupying power, immediately ceases all such violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, and fully abides by its legal obligations, including those under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israel’s blatant impunity and disregard for the law cannot be tolerated.
Turning to Lebanon, the Movement condemns Israel’s ongoing violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty and calls on all parties concerned to fully implement resolution 1701 (2006), in order to end the current fragility and avoid the resurgence of hostilities.
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From the Archives
The New Baghdad Pact
By Dr Bouthaina Shaaban | February 23, 2017
A recently declassified CIA document prepared in 1983, and released on 20 January 2017, shows that the United States had at the time encouraged Saddam Hussein to attack Syria, which would have led to a vicious conflict between the two countries, thus draining their resources.
The report, which was then prepared by CIA officer Graham Fuller, indicates that the US tried adamantly to convince Saddam to attack Syria under any pretense available, in order to get the two most powerful countries in the Arab East to destroy each other, turning their attention away from the Arab-Israeli conflict. … continue
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- An Inconvenient Tree: Uncovered In Alps… Europe Much Warmer Than Today 6000 Years Ago
- New Study Reports A 60% Slowdown In Greenland’s Ice Loss Rate In The Last Decade
- Low Intensity Tornado Wrecks Major Solar Farm, Creating A Potential Toxic Dump
- New Study Finds Warming Saves Lives…Cold Temperatures 12 Times More Deadly Than Excess Heat
- German Science Blog Accuses PIK Climate Institute Of Hallucinating Climate Tipping Points
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