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<h1 id="reader-title">Lebanon Escalates its Denial of Civil
Rights for Palestinian Refugees</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">by <span
class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/author/franklin-lamb/"
rel="nofollow">Franklin Lamb</a> - July 15, 2016<br>
</span></div>
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<p><em>Ain el Hilweh Palestinian camp, Lebanon</em></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The growing list of violations of Palestinian civil
rights in Lebanon includes, but is not limited to, the
following.</p>
<p><strong>Increased discrimination against Palestinian
refugee women in Lebanon</strong></p>
<p>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.<br>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><strong>Violations of international standards for
Travel Documents.</strong></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><strong>Increased government restrictions on Freedom of
Movement for Palestinians</strong></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><strong>Increased deprivation of Refugee Housing</strong></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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”.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><strong>Depriving Palestinian refugees displaced by
Syria’s civil war of basic shelter</strong></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p><strong>Lebanon deprives Palestinian refugees of the
basic rights to public health services.</strong></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p><strong>The Government of Lebanon increasingly deprives
Palestinian refugees of due process if they are
accused of an infraction.</strong></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><strong>Lebanon is guilty of Refoulment, forcing
Palestinian refugees back into Syria’s civil war</strong></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
</div>
<p class="author_description"> <i><strong>Franklin Lamb</strong> is
a visiting Professor of International Law at the Faculty
of Law, Damascus University and volunteers with the
Sabra-Shatila Scholarship Program (<a
href="http://sssp-lb.com/">sssp-lb.com</a>).</i> </p>
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