Human Rights Organizations Call for Investigation of Migrant Worker Abuse in Lebanon

[Alkarama Foundation logo. Image from alkarama.org] [Alkarama Foundation logo. Image from alkarama.org]

Human Rights Organizations Call for Investigation of Migrant Worker Abuse in Lebanon

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[The following statement was issued by a group of human rights organizations, including Alkarama Foundation, on 18 October 2012.] 

Illegal and racist practices against foreign workers or refugees in Lebanon are on the rise. The latest example in this regard took place on the evening of 7 October as members of the Lebanese Army raided the homes of seventy Syrian, Egyptian, and Sudanese workers in Beirut in response to a complaint by some residents against these workers of "harassing the girls and disturbing the residents." The workers were beaten during the raid.

Assaulting individuals and their privacy is totally unacceptable regardless of whether it was done by nationals or foreigners. Those attacked have the right to seek recourse with the competent public authority to stop the attack and prosecute the perpetrators. However, acting outside the rule of law or demonstrating an exaggerated form of reaction is unacceptable – whether it involved nationals or foreigners. Use of force by security forces is not admissible unless there was an extraordinary and exceptional necessity to do so – such as violent resistance or attacks on the security forces and public safety that cannot be stopped save through the use of force as long as it proportionate with the act or risk at hand. We express our concern that such an incident might have been prompted by the fact that the "defendants" are foreigners who are looked down upon and suffer marginalization and lack of protection.

By all means, what has taken place is to be regarded as a human rights violation, for such a case involves the following inherent violations:

  1. Lodging a complaint against some individuals who might have disturbed the residents does not mean that all members of the group that the defendants belong to should be targeted with punishment, or any foreign worker who might have been present in the area at the time of the raid. The way the assault took place conveys a sense of xenophobia, including the content of the statement released by the Orientation Directorate at the Lebanese Army that emphasized "the continuation of raids and investigations in areas suspected of harbouring workers of various nationalities who abuse citizens and violate their privacy."
  2. The competent authority to conduct investigation in alleged crimes is the "judiciary police" as duly mandated and supervised by the judiciary. The Judiciary police may – in exceptional and emergency circumstances – ask for the support of the Lebanese Army; yet we do not see in the said incident any political or security-based justification for the Army to intervene.
  3. The fact that the security forces have the duty to stop "abuses against citizens and violation of their privacy" should not give them the right to punish the perpetrators; otherwise, these forces would be acting as if they have issued a final judgement or ruling against the perpetrators and enforced the punishment whereas the only entity that has the right to issue and enforce the rulings and sentences is the judiciary. The latter acts after concluding a professional forensic investigation and receiving a judicial ruling duly issued in the name of the Lebanese people.
  4. The two statements released by the Orientation Directorate-Lebanese Army signal a serious twofold dilemma; firstly, a violation of delegated powers and launching military and security operations without referring to the law or competent political and judicial authorities – a serious issue indeed that can only take place under totalitarian regimes where the rule of law is absent. Secondly, the xenophobic attitude that permeates the statements, including the one released on 11 October in which the Lebanese Army called upon "all those who suffer abuses of any kind to contact the security and military forces that can act swiftly and conclusively to stop such abuses" and emphasized that it will continue to conduct its security operations to attend to "citizens interests" – thus disregarding the role of the prosecutor`s office.

The undersigned organizations denounce such infringement upon the safety and freedom of individuals and demand that the executive authorities that oversee the security forces and Lebanese army to live up to their responsibility to provide protection for citizens and foreign nationals alike against any attacks.

We also demand that the judiciary intervene to put an end to such practices, promptly open an investigation into the events of 7 October, and penalize all violators and perpetrators regardless of the agency they are affiliated with – including the security and military forces. We also call upon all authorities to uphold and respect the Lebanese Constitution and Lebanon`s obligations under the international standards as well as its local laws – particularly the right to personal and physical safety; the principle that all are equal before the law; and the right to enjoy all rights and obligations with no discrimination on the basis of colour, race, ethnicity, political opinion or any other considerations for that matter. We also call for the respect of the principles of accountability and separation of powers and those enshrined in the UN convention against torture and other forms of cruel, inhumane, or humiliating treatment or punishment.

Signed (Organizations):

Nahwa al-Muwatiniya

Anti-Racism Movement in Lebanon

Lebanese Observatory for the Rights of Workers and Employees

Legal Agenda

Human Rights Watch

Amnesty International

Frontiers Ruwad Advocacy

The Foundation for Human and Humanitarian Rights Lebanon (FHHR/L)

Nasawiya

Alkarama Foundation

Kafa (Enough) violence and exploitation

ANND

CLDH

ALEF

  • ALSO BY THIS AUTHOR

    • Long Form Podcast Episode 8: Resigning the State Department Over Gaza With Hala Rharrit

      Long Form Podcast Episode 8: Resigning the State Department Over Gaza With Hala Rharrit

      In this episode of Long Form, Hala Rharrit discusses the factors that led her to resign from the US State Department, the mechanisms by which institutional corruption and ideological commitments of officials and representatives ensure US support for Israel, and how US decision-makers consistently violate international law and US laws/legislation. Rharrit also addresses the Trump administration’s claim that South Africa is perpetrating genocide against the country’s Afrikaaner population, and how this intersects with the US-Israeli campaign of retribution against South Africa for hauling Israel before the ICJ on charges of genocide.

    • Emergency Teach-In — Israel’s Profound Existential Crisis: No Morals or Laws Left to Violate!

      Emergency Teach-In — Israel’s Profound Existential Crisis: No Morals or Laws Left to Violate!

      The entire globe stands behind Israel as it faces its most intractable existential crisis since it started its slow-motion Genocide in 1948. People of conscience the world over are in tears as Israel has completely run out of morals and laws to violate during its current faster-paced Genocide in Gaza. Israelis, state and society, feel helpless, like sitting ducks, as they search and scramble for an inkling of hope that they might find one more human value to desecrate, but, alas, their efforts remain futile. They have covered their grounds impeccably and now have to face the music. This is an emergency call for immediate global solidarity with Israel’s quest far a lot more annihilation. Please lend a helping limb.

    • Long Form Podcast Episode 7: Think Tanks and Manufactuing Consent with Mandy Turner (4 June)

      Long Form Podcast Episode 7: Think Tanks and Manufactuing Consent with Mandy Turner (4 June)

      In this episode, Mandy Turner discusses the vital role think tanks play in the policy process, and in manufacturing consent for government policy. Turner recently published a landmark study of leading Western think tanks and their positions on Israel and Palestine, tracing pronounced pro-Israel bias, where the the key role is primarily the work of senior staff within these institutions, the so-called “gatekeepers.”

Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 


[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412