Amnesty International joins Human Rights Watch and B'tselem in describing Israeli laws, policies and practices against Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories amount to apartheid.
Its new report alleges that the Israeli state maintains "an institutionalized regime of oppression and domination of the Palestinian population for the benefit of Jewish Israelis".
Officially all Israeli citizens have equal rights, regardless of religion or race. But Amnesty's report concludes that Israel "considers and treats Palestinians as an inferior non-Jewish racial group".
"The segregation is conducted in a systematic and highly institutionalized manner through laws, policies and practices, all of which are intended to prevent Palestinians from claiming and enjoying equal rights with Jewish Israelis within the territory of Israel and within the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and thus are intended to oppress and dominate the Palestinian people," it says.
"This has been complemented by a legal regime that controls (by negating) the rights of Palestinian refugees residing outside Israel and the OPT to return to their homes."
The report says the "territorial fragmentation" of the Palestinian population "serves as a foundational element of the regime of oppression and domination".
Other aspects, it alleges, include the denial of nationality and residence; denial of family life; severe restrictions on freedom of movement; and discriminatory seizure and allocation of and access to resources.
The report also says Amnesty has documented inhumane acts - forcible transfer, administrative detention and torture, unlawful killings and serious injuries, and the denial of basic freedoms or persecution - that it says Israel has committed against Palestinians "with the intention to maintain this system" and that "amount to the crime against humanity of apartheid" under of the Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Amnesty's secretary general, Agnès Callamard, explained that "There is no possible justification for a system built around the institutionalised and prolonged racist oppression of millions of people," she said. Callamard added: "The international community must face up to the reality of Israel's apartheid, and pursue the many avenues to justice which remain shamefully unexplored."
Israeli policies against Palestinians amount to apartheid - Amnesty - BBC News
No comments:
Post a Comment