By Tiril Andresen / GICJ
Amnesty International accused Israel of depriving the Palestinians of their fundamental rights and imposing a regime of apartheid against them. On the 1st of February 2022, Amnesty International published a report accusing the Israeli authorities of committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians. The report describes how the Palestinian people face systematic oppression, discrimination and dispossession. They are deprived of fundamental rights, including denial of citizenship and nationality and lack of free movement. The report also revealed grave human rights violations such as unlawful killings, torture, denial of refugees right to return and forcible transfers.
In the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998), apartheid is defined as "an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime," cf. article 7 (2) h). Amnesty found that the segregations and violations by the Israeli regime are committed to oppress and dominate the Palestinian people. Amnesty International's Secretary-General, Agnès Callamard, described how "Palestinians are treated as an inferior racial group and systematically deprived of their rights. We found that Israel's cruel policies of segregation, dispossession and exclusion across all territories under its control clearly amount to apartheid." [1]
Amnesty urged the international community to act and emphasized that "The international community must face up to the reality of Israel's apartheid, and pursue the many avenues to justice which remain shamefully unexplored." [2] In addition, they call upon the International Criminal Court (ICC) to "consider the crime of apartheid in its investigations in the OPT." Amnesty recommends different ways the Israeli authorities can act to end the apartheid system in the comprehensive report. As Agnès Callamard expressed, Amnesty urges Israel to "dismantle the apartheid system and start treating Palestinians as human beings with equal rights and dignity."
Geneva International Center of Justice (GICJ) condemns the Israeli authorities' systematic segregation and oppression against the Palestinian people. GICJ urges the international community to act and condemn all forms of discrimination, racial segregation and displacement practised by Israel against the Palestinian people. We hope that the International Criminal Court (ICC) will hold the Israeli government accountable for the crime of apartheid against humanity.
Justice, Human Rights, Geneva, geneva4justice, GICJ, Geneva International Centre For Justice
