4/56 Human rights in the occupied Syrian Golan - Report of the Secretary-General

UNITED NATIONS

A

General Assembly Distr. GENERAL

A/HRC/4/56 7 February 2007

Original: ENGLISH

HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL Fourth session Item 2 of the provisional agenda

IMPLEMENTATION OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLUTION 60/251 OF 15 MARCH 2006 ENTITLED “HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL”

Human rights in the occupied Syrian Golan

Report of the Secretary-General*

1. At its second session, the Human Rights Council adopted resolution 2/3 entitled “Human Rights in the occupied Syrian Golan”. In paragraph 6 of the resolution, the Council requested the Secretary-General to bring the resolution to the attention of all Governments, the competent United Nations organs, the specialized agencies, international and regional intergovernmental organizations and international humanitarian organizations and to give it the widest possible publicity, and to report on this matter to the Human Rights Council at its fourth session, due to be held from 12 March to 5 April 2007.

2. In accordance with this request, the Secretary-General, in a note verbale dated 6 December 2006, brought Council resolution 2/3 to the attention of all Governments, including those which are members of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories and also of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.

* The present report is submitted after the deadline so as to reflect recent information.

GE.07-10696 (E) 150207

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3. Furthermore, the resolution was transmitted to all the specialized agencies and to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. In addition, the resolution was brought to the attention of competent regional intergovernmental organizations and international humanitarian organizations.

4. The related activities undertaken by the Department of Public Information and United Nations Information Centres and Services have been listed in detail in paragraphs 7-13 of the report on the work of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories submitted by the Secretary-General to the sixty-first session of the General Assembly (A/61/330).

5. In a note verbale dated 8 January 2007 addressed to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Permanent Mission of Cuba to the Office of the United Nations at Geneva indicated that, while the Government of Cuba recognized the efforts deployed by the United Nations to end the military occupation by the Israeli forces of the occupied Syrian Golan, its occupation of Arab territories continued, as did the expansion of Jewish settlements. The Government of Cuba reiterated the inalienable right of the Syrian Arab Republic to the Golan Heights and urged the unconditional withdrawal of the territory by the occupying Power. There would be no just and lasting peace in the Middle East without the withdrawal by Israel from all the occupied Territories, including the occupied Syrian Golan, to the 1967 border.

6. In addition, the Government of Cuba referred to the XIV Summit Conference of Heads of State or Government of the Non-Aligned Movement held in Havana in September 2006, which reaffirmed the Movement’s unwavering support and solidarity with the Syrian request to restore the full Syrian sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan as emphasized by the Peace Initiative of Arab countries and the Madrid peace process, as well as relevant Security Council resolutions, and reiterated Israel’s obligation to abide by all the commitments so far pledged. The Movement called on the United Nations to organize an international conference on the Middle East with the view to elaborating an overall, just and durable peace plan for the region with the participation of the permanent members of the Security Council and other interested parties, including member States of the Non-Aligned Movement.

7. By note verbale dated 9 January 2007, the Permanent Mission of Ecuador to the Office of the United Nations at Geneva acknowledged receipt of the Secretary-General’s note verbale and informed the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that, in accordance with the request contained in paragraph 6 of Human Rights Council resolution 2/3, it had taken note of it and disseminated its contents.

8. The Permanent Mission of Mexico to the Office of the United Nations at Geneva informed the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights by note verbale dated 12 January 2007 that it had no observations to make on the implementation of the aforesaid resolution.

9. In a note verbale dated 20 January 2007, the Permanent Mission of Morocco to the Office of the United Nations at Geneva reported that Morocco rejected all forms of Israeli practices that violated human rights in Palestine and all the occupied Arab territories, including the Golan Heights, as well as all measures that purport to alter the physical character and demographic composition of the occupied Arab territories. Morocco referred to various

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resolutions adopted by the League of Arab States on this issue, in which the Arab countries reaffirmed their support for the request of the Syrian Arab Republic to restore the Golan Heights in accordance with the peace process and the provisions of international law, including that which had been established in the framework of the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991, in particular resolution 6612 (125) of 4 March 2006, in which the Arab League has rejected all measures taken by the Israeli occupation authorities that aim at changing the legal, physical and demographic status of the occupied Syrian Golan, and considers them as null and void and in breach of international conventions and of the Charter and resolutions of the United Nations. At its ordinary session, held at the ministerial level in Cairo in September 2006, the Council of the League of Arab States reaffirmed the Arab countries’ solidarity with the Syrian Arab Republic and their support for the Arab citizens in the Golan in their efforts to preserve their land and Arab Syrian identity, and condemned all practices that constituted a flagrant violation of their rights. Morocco, therefore, supports all resolutions and decisions of the United Nations denouncing the Israeli practices which violate human rights in the occupied Arab territories and which aim at suppressing the identity of its people.

10. Finally, by letter dated 5 January 2007, the International Labour Office (ILO) drew attention to paragraphs 52 to 59, 110 and 122 of the Appendix to the Director-General’s report to the International Labour Conference in 2006, entitled “The situation of workers of the Occupied Arab Territories”, which the ILO has always considered to include the occupied Syrian Golan.

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