Speaker Discusses Civil Rights in Middle East

Warning that disregard for human rights is undermining the Middle East peace process, Palestinian lawyer and founder of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights Raji Sourani accused both Israel and the Palestinian Authority of violating civil rights in a somber speech Sunday afternoon at the Unitarian Church in Harvard Square.

Sourani, a 1991 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Laureate, divided his remarks between attacks on Israel--which he said enforces a "de facto apartheid" in the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank--and the Palestinian Authority. He accused the Authority of responding to Western calls for crackdowns on militant groups by suspending due process and resorting to torture of suspected criminals.

The result is "at the end of the day, what we are having is neither human rights, democracy, peace or security," Sourani told the sympathetic audience.

Sourani, who has been imprisoned a half-dozen times by Israeli authorities and was detained by the Palestinian Authority in 1995 after criticizing military courts, is one of the most respected human rights advocates in the occupied territories and Israel.

He spoke for about twenty minutes in measured, halting English.

Sourani called routine Israeli confiscations of Palestinian land a "policy of almost ethnic cleansing through legal means."

Israeli laws place a number of restrictions on Palestinians--from limiting the number of floors their houses may have to restricting freedom of movement.

Sourani described the situation in the Palestinian Authority, which took power in May 1994 following the signing of the Oslo accords, as little better.

He said the authority routinely tortures suspects. In an effort to control militant groups like Hamas, the Authority has set up courts which mete out arbitrary arrests and abuse in the name of controlling terrorism, Sourani said.

"I have no recipe how as Palestinians we can get rid of that," he said. "There is an incredible conspiracy of silence" surrounding the actions of the Palestinian Authority, he said.

Sourani said that Israel's systemic oppression of Palestinians, along with the abuses of the Palestinian Authority, threaten to destroy Palestinian civil society and throw the peace process into jeopardy.

Sourani also blasted the U.S. for abetting the authority's trampling of human rights.

"The U.S. is morally, politically and legally responsible as co-sponsors of the peace process," he said. Sourani said the U.S. had pressured the Palestinian Authority to crack down on Hamas and had praised the repressive military courts.

Sourani also accused both Israel and Islamic groups of duplicity in their commitment to human rights.

"Israel selectively uses human rights against the P.A. to say `we are not as bad as them'" while continuing to violate human rights norms, he said.

Sourani said Islamic groups also subvert their commitment to human rights to political goals.

"The Islamic movement at large deals with human rights selectively," he said.

He drew praise from his audience for holding both Israelis and Palestinians to the same human rights standard and not allowing politics to cloud his commitment to human rights.

"His work is very worthwhile," said Beatrice St. Laurent, a Harvard Ph.D who lived in the West Bank for many years. "He hasn't compromised."

"He made a very strong point, that Israel employs human rights doctrine selectively for its political purposes," said Charles L. Wilkins, a non-resident tutor in Adams House.

Sourani's visit was co-sponsored by the Boston Coalition on the Middle East and Grassroots International, a not-for-profit organization based in Boston.