Press Releases
On 8 May, BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights held a side event in parallel to the 43rd Session of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. The event, entitled “UPR of Israel: 75 years of denial of the Palestinian people’s rights to self-determination and return”. The UPR is a UN peer review process through which the human rights records of all UN Member States are reviewed.
The speakers, BADIL and a member of BADIL’s Network for Advocacy Support (NAS), Ms. Nada Awad, focused their interventions on the root causes of the situation, namely the ongoing Nakba and Israel’s colonial-apartheid regime. This event comes following a submission made by BADIL, providing states with a set of recommendations ahead of the review, mainly focusing on self-determination, refugee rights, and the tools used to silence of civil society for exposing Israeli violations.
The UPR of Israel coincides with the 75-year commemoration of the Nakba, 75 years of ongoing transfer, fragmentation of the Palestinian people and the denial of their inalienable rights to self-determination and return. For this occasion, BADIL released a film titled "75 Years of Ongoing Nakba”, which was showed for the first time during the event, in the presence of a dozen state representatives, representatives of the OHCHR and members of civil society.
BADIL addressed the mounting recognition of Israel’s apartheid regime by UN Special Procedures, treaty bodies, and UN member states, stressing that the approach required is one which addresses all three pillars of the Israel regime, forcible transfer, colonization and apartheid, is a first step to ensuring accountability.
Providing the recommendations, BADIL stressed the importance for states to adopt a rights-based decolonization approach as the framework for achieving the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and holding Israel accountable to international law. Furthermore, BADIL called on states to ensure they follow up on their UPR recommendations by addressing the centrality of self-determination and refugee return in their engagement with the UN. BADIL also called on states to cooperate and support the Commission of Inquiry mandated to investigate apartheid on both sides of the Green Line as well as the root causes of the situation, by studying the impact of Israel’s system of domination that intertwines colonization and apartheid to deny the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and the right to return to their homes of origin.
The side event took place one day before the UPR of Israel. During the session, multiple states from around the world addressed the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people. Additional member states brought to the Council’s attention the issue of forcible displacement and transfer and the right of return of Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons. For example, Namibia called on Israel to dismantle its apartheid system and “Recognize and implement the fundamental rights of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return their homes, and provide restitution, compensation and other effective remedies for loss of their land and property.” Malaysia called on Israel to “Stop and reverse all policies and practices that contribute to the fragmentation of the Palestinian people, deny Palestinians their right to self-determination and permanent sovereignty over their lands and other natural resources.”
The majority of states which took the floor made recommendations to Israel pertaining to accountability and urged Israel to cooperate with the UN and its mechanisms. A large number of states addressed restrictions imposed by Israel on civil society and called for the protection of human rights defenders and civil society organizations.