"SHAMS" center reminds the United Nations, and peace-loving countries, that, despite the passage of 63 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Palestinian people continue to suffer under the yoke of occupation, in flagrant and continuous violations for its basic rights that comprise abuse of the right to life, arrest of thousands of citizens in the prisons of the occupation, prevention of freedom of movement, prevention of access to places of worship, demolition of houses, uprooting trees, confiscation of land and properties, building and expanding settlements, isolation of villages by the apartheid wall, dismemberment of the country, erection of checkpoints, imposition of unjust siege, the continued isolation of Jerusalem from its Palestinian surroundings, usage of internationally prohibited weapons, plundering of Palestinian wealth and natural resources, damaging the environment, and attacks on journalists and freedom of expression. These actions will certainly prevent Palestinian from the right of self-determination, in addition to despising the rules of international law and international legitimacy resolutions that prohibit the occupation in all its forms.
“SHAMS” center recalls that the working conditions of human rights defenders and NGOs workers continued to be difficult. They are being subjected to threats, intimidations, attacks and harassment against their reputation and personal safety in order to obstruct their work and undermine their credibility, although the international law of human rights has evolved considerably in terms of cooperation mechanisms but remained ineffective in terms of applying real monitoring mechanisms which guarantee, in the first place, that human rights protection should be the responsibility of each State.
The Center deplores all violations and abuses -in many countries around the world- against rights of individuals and groups that remain include the use of excessive force in the face of protests and public claims and employing collective punishment against them, including cruel and degrading to human dignity through arbitrary detention, and psychological and physical torture, , and failure to provide t appropriate conditions for fair trial through independent, impartial and neutral courts that afford all necessary guarantees for the defense of the accused.
On the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and on the International Day of defenders of human rights, “SHAMS” center calls upon experts of the international law of human rights, national institutions for human rights, Human Rights Council and the High Commissioner for Human Rights to give more attention for promoting and upholding human rights in terms of content, in addition, The center stresses the need to strengthen the cooperative nature of the relations of countries in the field of human rights and the rule of democratic concepts in international relations, and not to exploit the principles of human rights by some countries to intervene in the affairs of other States or to launch an attack or invasion, as happened in Libya, Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, where military force was used against civilians, at the time that some serious violations against human rights were in other allied countries were condoned.
“SHAMS” center highly appreciates the efforts undertaken by NGOs, particularly human rights institutions in defense of human rights and promotion among the Palestinian community, stressing the need for a joint collaboration with institutions dealing with human rights to establish a unified system for human rights in the Palestinian territories and upgrading its status, by promoting the concepts of human rights and the rule of law. In this regard, the center calls for the need to integrate the roles of institutions active in human rights and the government to stand firmly against gross violations of the occupation and its settlers, and the need to benefit from the experience and expertise of institutions of civil rights in the prosecution of war criminals and violators of human rights.
The Center appeals for Arab parliaments to revise constitutions, and some national laws in the Arab world in line with the demands, objectives and motives of Arab revolutions, in order to be consistent and compatible with the principles of international law of human rights that came to emphasize the equality of people before the law and their right for work, education, property and freedom of expression, in addition to their right to participate, build a society based on the legal basis of equality, justice and equal opportunities.
Finally, “SHAMS” center confirms the need to reject the approach of double standards for the use of human rights, and the need to develop practical and impartial international programs for monitoring the situation of human rights around the world, in addition to the need to expand the dissemination of the culture of human rights through including it in formal education at all stages, and to expand cooperation, coordination and joint work among local, regional and international organizations active in the field of human rights. This cooperation may include issuance of reports, newsletters, and statistical data that document and monitor violations of human rights in various fields, and by drafting a common and new concept of human rights from the perspective of cultural pluralism and equality.
