Arab- Israeli Recommendation to Withdraw Consultative Status for Arab Commission for Human Rights

A number of Arab and African states, members of the International Human Rights Council, in its last meeting in New York, made a recommendation to the UN Economic and Social Council to withdraw the consultative status of AOHR for one year.  

This recommendation was presented by the representative of the State of Algeria, claiming that the committee’s representative in Geneva “Rasid Mossali” is listed in the terrorists list in Algeria. Representatives of Egypt, Sudan, Qatar and Israel shared in this recommendation. 

While the US and some European countries refused to vote on the recommendation before wide investigations being carried out. 

Violette Dagher, head of AOHR in Paris, stated in a press releace to “Aldostor” that these states made its request at a time where our organization is trying to transfere Israel to the International Criminal Court for the crimes it committed against Palestinians in Gaza, after we met with the prosecuter of the ICC and asked him to move an urgent trial against Israel . States recommendation to withdraw the UN’s consultative status is an attempt to prevent our legal actions against Israel”. 

Dagher asked: “ Didn’t the state of Algeria know this person represents us until this time!”. She affirmed that “Mossali” does not represent the organization and said that he is a lawyer who defends human dignity and has a political asylum in Switzerland, a country which does not agree on giving asylum before carrying out serious investigations about the applicant. 

Dagher attributed  Egypt’s position to this recommendation to the organization’s adoption of a legal position rejecting Military and exceptional trials for civilians in addition to its position in solidarity with journalists who were sentenced to detention by the Egyptian courts. 

Dagher stressed that they will submit an explanatory statement to the Economic and Social Council and Human Rights Council to defend the organization and to abolish these recommendations made by these states.  

Mrs. Dagher added that the position of those states would not stop them from following Israel and taking it to court. She spoke about a meeting held by the the Arab Committee yesterday with the presence of the Palestinian Minister of  Justice and a number of European officials and human rights activists to document the Israeli crimes and search for legal alternatives to start a trial. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Monsef Almarzouqi, former president of the committee stated that such a step is one of the struggles faced by the committee since its establishment on 1998, adding that the Committee now is the spearhead in the prosecution of Israeli war criminals and he wondered how could the Committee not be an enemy to the corrupt Arab political system and the corrupt cultural system and not be targeted by this and that.  

Mr. Almarzouqi said that such a step is contrary to the reality since the intervention of the Committee in the work of the Higher Commissioner for Human Rights and the Economic and Social Council is at the top of the activities of NGOs.  

Its worth noting that the Economic and Social Council is one of UN bodies, composed of 54 member states elected by the General Assembly for three years and working on increasing respect and the protection for human rights and fundamental freedoms in consultaion with NGOs which cares about matters of concern to the Council.