[News] Lebanon Escalates its Denial of Civil Rights for Palestinian Refugees

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/15/lebanon-escalates-its-denial-of-civil-rights-for-palestinian-refugees/ 



  Lebanon Escalates its Denial of Civil Rights for Palestinian Refugees

by Franklin Lamb <http://www.counterpunch.org/author/franklin-lamb/> - 
July 15, 2016

/Ain el Hilweh Palestinian camp, Lebanon/

In Lebanon today, Palestinians are being threatened by the government 
that ISIS (Daesh) and Al Nursa are plotting to take over Ain el Helweh 
and the other 11 camps.

Palestinian factions and the residents of the Ain el Hilweh Palestinian 
camp in Saida Lebanon know very well that militant jihadist groups 
including ISIS (Daesh) and Al Nusra are now deeply implanted in their 
midst and that both are working to seize control of their camp as well 
as Burj el-Barajneh, 1948, El Buss, 1949 Nahr al-Bared 1949, Shatila, 
1948, Wavel 1952, Mar Elias, 1954, Mieh Mieh, 1955, Beddawi 1955, Burj 
el-Shemali 1956, Dbayeh  and, Rashidieh 1963.

One jihadist activist with whom this observer has had long and sometimes 
contentious discussions is Imad Yassine of ISIS, including separate 
discussions with a representative of the pro Nusra Front group and its 
many camps allies led by Haitham al Shaabi.

The same “government” that systematically deprives Palestinian refugees 
in Lebanon of virtually all internationally mandated civil rights 
described below is today (7/14/2015) shrieking a la Chicken Little that 
the sky is falling and that “the terrorists are trying to turn the camps 
into a time bomb that might explode any moment.” Politicians here are 
also threatening that “it will lead to severe repercussions for the 
camp’s residents, who will be the first casualty of the plots of these 
groups.” The political establishment wails: “It is totally unacceptable 
to turn Ain el Hilweh and other camps into hubs for terrorism that 
might spread to blow up entire Lebanon.”

This observer does not know of one ten year old Palestinian refugee who 
takes seriously these hysterics. Yet it is likely that if Lebanon 
continues to deprive Palestinian refugees of internationally mandated 
civil rights that the camps will seek redress elsewhere. And they will 
have the support of most people of goodwill.

Nearly seven decades after the 1948 Nakba, Lebanon is increasingly 
depriving Palestinian refugees of elementary, internationally guaranteed 
civil rights. And at an accelerating pace. Unfortunately, few if any of 
its gentrifying and currently intensely sectarianized political class, 
several of whom this observer has recently interviewed or communicated 
with, exhibit serious interest in bucking this trend.

In addition to Palestinian refugees being denied the elementary civil 
right to work and to own a home, the only refugees on earth so deprived, 
Lebanon in massive violation of international humanitarian law, is now 
blocking even more civil rights.

The growing list of violations of Palestinian civil rights in Lebanon 
includes, but is not limited to, the following.

*Increased discrimination against Palestinian refugee women in Lebanon*

Lebanon’s law which outlaws the granting of citizenship to a Palestinian 
refugee woman married to a Lebanese is being expanded. This constitutes 
a direct violation of international humanitarian law which binds 
Lebanon. It also violates Lebanon’s National Law Article 5 as amended in 
1960 which requires that “the foreign women married to a Lebanese become 
Lebanese one year after registration of the marriage in the civil 
registration system upon her request”. In 2010 Lebanon’s government 
falsely claimed it corrected this injustice. It did not. Nor did it, in 
violation of international law, take any step to end all kinds of 
discriminations against women in Lebanon. This egregious denial of civil 
rights for Palestinian and Lebanese women risks US and international 
sanctions against Lebanon while making a mockery the claim that Lebanon 
is a Democracy.
The government of Lebanon has also recently intensified its refusal to 
allow Palestinian refugee women in Lebanon the civil right to give their 
children any legal status whatsoever. Palestinian refugee women married 
to a foreigner are also blocked from the right to give free residency 
permits to their children, as Lebanese women are able to do. In 
addition, Palestinian refugee woman are prevented from giving their 
husbands an annual foreign residence permit. A campaign has recently 
intensified preventing the parents of newborn Palestinian refugee 
children, from even registering their births or acquiring any ID 
documents. This refusal directly violates International Law which 
requires the children’s status also as refugees. This illegality blocks 
Palestinian newborns from having legal personality and consequently 
condemns them to beginning their lives here in Lebanon as outlaws. They 
are fated to be heavily shackled when they seek to participate in normal 
activities such as education, receiving health care, traveling inside 
and outside of Lebanon and much more.

Lebanese law egregiously discriminates against women in general. It also 
bars Lebanese women from giving citizenship to their children. With 
respect to Palestinian refugees, UNRWA , the agency of the UN whose 
mandate is Palestinian refugees, has repeatedly petitioned Lebanon that 
the UN and international humanitarian law requires it to implement human 
rights standards. UNWRA’s pleas continue to fall on deaf ears and 
registered Palestinian refugee women are systematically deprived of any 
possibility of registering their children under their name, so children 
whose mother is married to a Non-ID Palestinian, for example, are 
deprived from being registered at all-even by UNWRA.

In flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, including the 
1951 Refugee Convention which binds Lebanon via International Customary 
Law, the government of Lebanon is systematically outlawing the right of 
the nearly 80,000 Palestinian refugees from Syria to be granted the 
internationally mandated legal status of refugees. In an attempt to 
subvert international law and increase its marginalization of 
Palestinians, Lebanese government regulatory measures dated 31/12/2014 
failed to grant wives of Palestinian refugees from Syria the right to 
allow her husband and children, who are Palestinian Refugees in Syria, 
to enter Lebanon.

Lebanon’s government labels them as tourists subjecting them to nearly 
impossible to comply with “legal procedures” to enter or remain in 
Lebanon by requiring paid residency permits. This illegal requirement 
obtained until August 2014 when the government of Lebanon further 
violated Palestinian rights and enacted a “No Stay” edict toward the 
Palestinian refugees from Syria. Lebanon enacted a residency permit 
requirement, while at the same time blocking-the renewal of residency 
permits. This illegal action, in addition to Kafkaesque entry 
procedures, has now rendered illegal most Palestinian refugees from 
Syria who were forced to flee to Lebanon for their lives.

At the same time Lebanon is now subjecting Palestinian refugees from 
Syria to arrest and prosecution on site. Lebanon’s Parliament does not 
consider Palestinian refugees from Syria as refugees escaping civil war 
and treats them more harshly even than Syrian refugees, who are 
themselves erroneously and cynically labeled as “displaced” in Lebanon.

Recently, Lebanon has been intensifying its deprivation of internal 
freedom of movement to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon making it 
effectively unlawful to even change residences. Of the 12 Palestinian 
refugee camps and 24 gatherings, more than half are now fenced with 
barbwire and/or military checkpoints. This smothering tactic hinders the 
freedom of movement of Palestinians living inside the camps and 
gatherings. These restrictions add massive psychological pressure on 
refugees especially in light of them being denied the elementary civil 
right to work or to own a home. As of July 2016 checkpoints continue to 
be tightened also around the Hezbollah controlled southern suburbs of 
Beirut camps and also at camp entrances in north Lebanon, targeting 
Bedawi and Nahr al Bared camps.

*Violations of international standards for Travel Documents.*

Over the past few years, the Lebanese government has been intensifying 
its discrimination against Palestinian refugee travel documents in 
direct violation of international standards. It now issues Palestinian 
refugees punitive travel documents which are not machine-readable and do 
not meet international standards, as compared to Lebanese passports. 
Consequently Palestinian refugee travel documents are now being rejected 
by most countries, preventing the issuance of visas.

To compound the problem, Lebanon discriminates among different 
Palestinian refugee categories. It grants Palestinian refugees 
registered with UNRWA travel documents for five years as opposed to one 
year for those who are not and cannot register with UNRWA for various 
reasons. This limits their chances of having a long term visa and thus 
negatively affects their chances to live, work and learn outside Lebanon.

*Increased government restrictions on Freedom of Movement for Palestinians*

Over the past few years Lebanon has intensified its illegal restrictions 
on the right of freedom of movement for Palestinian refugees living in 
Lebanon’s 12 camps and 24 gatherings. Claiming “Security Procedures” it 
has curtailed the number of camps’ entrances and exits. Military 
checkpoints increasingly restrict the right to freedom of movement 
putting yet more pressure on the camp inhabitants. Camp residents are 
ordered to register their entry and exit at night, and sometimes at 
daytime. Often camp residents are forced to wait for long periods, 
preventing them from being on time for work and generally hindering 
their mobility. These restrictions risk people’s lives in times of 
internal military tension or clashes.

Since 2011 when the Syrian civil war began, the government of Lebanon 
has worked to prevent Palestinian refugees from Syria from living 
anything remotely like a normal refugee’s life. It has done so by 
enacting various blatantly illegal measures. These include but are not 
limited to the following: physical and verbal abuse, humiliations in 
various forms,, physical violence, intimidation and forcing them return 
(refoulement) to a war zone from which they fled for their families 
lives. There are many recorded cases of immigration officials at 
Syria-Lebanon border crossing at Masnaa allowing some family member in 
but barring others thus splitting up families in violation of 
international humanitarian law. As noted above, a government decree 
dated 31/12/2014, ignores the suffering of Palestinian refugees from 
Syria by not even recognizing them as war refugees. It leaves them also 
exposed to the psychology and prejudices of personal on duty at border 
control crossings.

In addition, the government of Lebanon has recently intensified its 
violations of the international humanitarian law requirement of the 
right to freedom of movement for Palestinians from Syria by failing to 
protect them from inhumane and degrading treatment including verbal and 
physical violence, arbitrary detention, harassment at entrances to 
camps, and curfews targeting Palestinians from Syria in certain 
municipalities, some known for their historic intense animosity toward 
Palestinians.

*Increased deprivation of Refugee Housing*

The government of Lebanon continues depriving Palestinians of adequate 
housing. Inside the 12 camps, the very limited living space areas have 
not been enlarged during the past more than half a century whereas the 
camp population has nearly quadrupled. In many areas of the camps, 
sunlight is blocked and massive overcrowding cuts off ventilation. These 
results in high humidity indoors and many respiratory and related 
diseases. The narrow alley structure, the non-existence of public green 
areas or spaces for entertainment and the deteriorated infrastructure 
subject the social and security environment in the camps to breakdown. 
The spreading diseases create social problems, loss of human dignity and 
in many cases eliminate family privacy. Increasingly the camps suffer 
poor inadequate infrastructure for drinking water and sewage. High 
humidity, leakage, poor ventilation, and piled garbage near to the 
houses, there is increasingly an unhealthy environment with cases of 
serious thoracic and chronic diseases ever rising.

It has been almost a decade since the destruction of Nahr Al-Bared camp 
and the displacement of 4867 Palestinian families. Despite promises of 
rebuilding the camp allowing for the families to return two thirds of 
the camp is still rubble. As of July 2016 only 1321 persons have 
returned they are still squeezed into containers as “temporary” homes. 
In winters the metal containers are frozen below 0 degrees Centigrade 
while in summer they become nearly uninhabitable “ovens”.

The Government of Lebanon is obliged, by international humanitarian law 
to help ease these conditions. But in reality the government of Lebanon 
is compounding the inhuman camp conditions by outlawing the entry of 
construction materials, tools and sanitation supplies into the camps. 
Lebanese politicians increasingly consider Palestinian refugees solely 
as a security problem. For example, even to be allowed to repair camp 
sewage lines, Lebanon’s Army Intelligence (Deuxime Bureau) which led the 
post-1982 reign of terror against Palestinians (who were instantly 
stripped of the protection of the PLO when its leadership departed in 
August of 1982) must give its approval. These procedures largely block 
Palestinian refugee from repairing their houses, some of which have 
collapsed. Absence of support for the camps from neighboring 
municipalities to help repair the infrastructure is also causing the 
weakening the water and sanitation services and electricity.

*Depriving Palestinian refugees displaced by Syria’s civil war of basic 
shelter*

Unlike other countries in the region, the Lebanese Government does not 
recognize Palestinians who fled for their lives from Syria as refugees 
in violation of virtually all principles, standards and rules of 
international law. Consequently approximately 50% are living rough in 
various ‘gatherings’ without any protection from the government and are 
sometimes subjected to abuse by land owners, municipalities’ with 
randomly imposed ‘regulations’ as well as racist behavior of some 
residents of the area. Others are forced to crowd into Palestinian 
camps, which are already massively overpopulated with poor and ever 
deteriorating infrastructure while blocked from any judicial recourse or 
remedy. All in violation of the 1951 Refugee law which binds Lebanon 
based on international customary law.

Lebanon is now preventing Palestinian refugees from Syria who lost their 
identification documents due to civil war from seeking safety in Lebanon 
while at the same time prosecuting Palestinians from Syria who have 
entered Lebanon “illegally.”

*Lebanon deprives Palestinian refugees of the basic rights to public 
health services.*

The Government of Lebanon deprives Palestinian refugees from Ministry of 
Public Health services including free hospitalization, drugs for chronic 
and even emergency medical services. This constitutes egregious 
rejection of its responsibilities as a refugee host country.

In addition, Lebanon discriminates against disabled Palestinian refugees 
denying them the rights of disabled Lebanese. This despite the fact that 
Lebanese law 220/2000 does not exclude the Palestinian refugees from the 
laws definition of “Disabled person” by limiting the services to only 
“Disabled Lebanese.”

*The Government of Lebanon increasingly deprives Palestinian refugees of 
due process if they are accused of an infraction.*

For example, Lebanon bizarrely does not differentiate among various 
types of crimes with respect to Palestinian refugees who are arrested 
and prosecuted. This illegal practice completely abrogates 
internationally required due process of law for Palestinians in this 
country. Lebanon employs informants and suspicion to arrest Palestinian 
refugees, usually by intelligence agencies and often in violation of 
Lebanon law. Rather than conducting investigations and summoning the 
suspect for interrogation, Lebanon treats the refugees as convicted 
until proven innocent. Lebanon increasingly prevents even family 
communication and routinely employs assault, coercion and intimidation 
during interrogation of Palestinian refugees while frequently failing to 
allow legal counsel for the accused to defend the often fake charges.

Typically, following interrogation in a “security intelligence way” the 
Palestinian refugee is transferred to the competent authority. As for 
the detention duration without trial, Lebanon ignores international 
standards and employs no timeframe for trial. As an example, since 2007 
Lebanese authorities have been arbitrarily holding Nahr al Bared 
detainees, without trial. Many not charged with a crime. These kinds of 
abuses shatter any pretense of Lebanon having a legitimate criminal 
legal system with respect to Palestinian refugees.

*Lebanon is guilty of Refoulment, forcing Palestinian refugees back into 
Syria’s civil war*

One of many examples of how Lebanese authorities routinely violate the 
civil rights of Palestinian refugees occurred at Beirut’s International 
Airport on May 3 of 2014. By coincidence, this observer, who currently 
lives near the airport, was present to meet an arriving friend.

What happened was that in violation of all international and 
humanitarian norms, and international treaties and conventions that 
Lebanon has signed and agreed upon Lebanese security authorities 
arrested 49 refugees from Syria, mostly Palestinians, among them women 
and children, while trying to travel using fake visas heading to an Arab 
country, and after referring to Public Prosecution Discriminatory, they 
were transported to court on order of Lebanon’s General Security. 
Obviously it’s the right of the Lebanese government to arrest anyone 
carrying a fake visa, but without due process they were rapidly taken to 
Public Prosecution during the weekend when the courts and La Maison des 
Avocats were closed. The detainees were forced back to Syria within 24 
hours. Any pretense of employing minimal due process would have required 
that the detainees be taken to a detention center until until Monday 
morning, to be brought before a public prosecutor, who might refer them 
to an investigating judge and then to the court for a trial, As it 
turned out, the refugees were victims of a scam, which would imply an 
investigation to uncover the perpetrator of the fraud. Instead, as 
happens in countless cases involving Palestinian refugees, Lebanon 
punished the victims, who were victims again also of arbitrary exile and 
Lebanese officials denying them a due process humanitarian trial.

An excellent report prepared by a coalition of organizations of civil 
society, including the Palestine Human Rights Organization (PHR0) 
working within Palestinian refugee communities in Lebanon identified 
additional examples of internationally mandated civil rights of 
Palestinian refugees being increasingly violated by the Lebanese 
government. These include, but are not limited to, blocking Palestinian 
women from seeking justice in competent Courts as opposed to camp 
‘popular committee” notions of justice thus depriving Palestinian women 
of protection and enjoyment of their civil rights, turning a blind eye 
to forced marriage of girls and sexual abuse, allowing the involvement 
of children in regional armed conflicts, failing to act on complaints 
that document human trafficking of Palestinian women and children, 
denying Palestinian refugees the right to free opinion and expression, 
denying Palestinian refugees the right to freedom of association or to 
even form or join associations.

The justice for Palestine struggle continues on many fronts and it must 
and will do until the human right of Full Return is achieved. One front 
that requires our vigilance and action in this turbulent times are the 
ever deteriorating civil rights of Palestinians in Lebanon.

/*Franklin Lamb* is a visiting Professor of International Law at the 
Faculty of Law, Damascus University and volunteers with the 
Sabra-Shatila Scholarship Program (sssp-lb.com <http://sssp-lb.com/>)./

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20160715/d0807fe8/attachment.htm>