Israel Wins the World’s Worst Housing Rights Violators Award
The Geneva based Center on Housing
Rights and Evictions (COHRE) has identified the countries
guilty of most consistently abusing and defying international
housing rights law in 2002 for its new annual Housing Rights
Violators Award. Israel is among the ten states chosen to receive
the award.
The list of the top ten housing
rights violators includes BURMA (Myanmar), COLOMBIA, CROATIA,
GUATEMALA, INDIA, ISRAEL, PAKISTAN, USA and ZIMBABWE. The countries
were selected on the basis of reliable data which confirmed the
widespread occurrence of housing rights violations in recent years
with a particular focus on the previous twelve months.
Over the past two years Israel has
continued with impunity to violate international human rights and
humanitarian law. International human rights organizations have
denounced the brutal policies of the Israeli government, including
the practice of house demolition, a war crime under the Geneva
Conventions of 1949. Israel fails to abide by its obligations under
all international human rights conventions, such as the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the
International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial
Discrimination; the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, a.o.
On the other hand, COHRE was able to
identify a number of governments with outstanding performance in
the area of housing rights in 2002. "BRAZIL, EAST TIMOR and SOUTH
AFRICA exemplify what can be done when the political will of
governments is genuinely applied toward protecting human rights and
safeguarding human dignity. Emerging from violent and repressive
histories, these three governments have taken notable steps in
redressing the human rights abuses of the past."
The Centre on Housing Rights and
Evictions (COHRE) is an international, non-governmental human
rights organization whose mission is to promote and protect the
full enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights for
everyone, everywhere, with a particular focus on the human right to
adequate housing and preventing forced evictions.
For more information on the COHRE
Housing Rights Violator Awards Project, please feel free to contact
COHRE via: www.cohre.org.
Attacks on Refugee Camps and Refugee Populated
Areas
Attacks on
refugee camps and refugee-populated areas violate international
humanitarian, human rights, and refugee law. In order to continue
to bring attention to the ongoing Israeli attacks on Palestinian
refugee camps in the 1967 occupied territories and the urgent need
for international protection, BADIL has prepared this short summary
of attacks on refugee camps and refugee populated areas. The table
covers the period 1 October 2002 through 15 March 2003. The
information is based on reported attacks.
Sources: PCHR, 2 March 2003, Ref: 28/2003; PCHR, 3 March
2003, Ref: 30/2033; PCHR, 25 January 2003; PCHR, 2 January 2003;
PCHR, 16 December 2003; Press Statement by UNRWA, 6 December 2002;
UNRWA reference; PAL/1937, UNRWA, 10 March 2003; LAW; AFP; UN News
Service; Reuters
For more information see,
‘Physical Protection for Refugee Populated Areas’, BADIL Occasional
Bulletin No. 6 (May 2001) available on the BADIL website,
www.badil.org/Publications/Bulletins/Bulletins.htm
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