Stephen Lendman

On April 17, about 1,600 Palestinian prisoners began open-ended hunger strikes. More on that below.

Palestinians face hellish conditions in Israeli prisons. They endure torture, deprivation, isolation, intimidation, and denial of basic rights. Administrative detainees are held indefinitely without charge or trial. Children young as 10 are treated like adults. So-called security prisoners are isolated punitively for extended periods. All Palestinian prisoners suffer overcrowding, poor ventilation and sanitation, lack of proper clothing, inadequate food in terms of quality, quantity, and conformity to dietary requirements, and poor medical care. They also have limited or no access to family members and counsel. They get wooden planks with thin mattresses and filthy blankets. They suffer winter and summer weather extremes. The Addameer prisoner support group calls overall conditions "appalling." Palestinians "are almost completely cut off from the outside world." Children are treated like adults. Women are treated like men. Toilets inside cells often back up through drains. Essential hygiene necessities like toothpaste, clean clothes, and cleaning products are denied. Medical negligence is common. Required surgery may take years to get if at all. Medications only are given to treat disease. "Sick detainees inside Israeli prisons live on painkillers and tranquilizers," says Addameer. Many released prisoners face chronic health problems. Often, early death results. Israeli treatment violates international law. Doing so is official Israeli policy.

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Adnan Al-Daini

Photo: Asylum seeker arrested as protesters gathered outside Lunar House, Croydon. - In a clear example of what [this] demonstration in Croydon was about, a distressed asylum seeker was arrested as protesters gathered outside Lunar House, which houses the headquarters of the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) and its main screening unit. Three Metropolitan Police officers [...] grappled the man to the ground and restrained him whilst he lay face down on the concrete forecourt. He received cuts to his face as he shouted "Help me, help me!" Over 200 people from the Gatwick No Border Camp [had] gathered in East Croydon from 10am to protest against the mistreatment of refugees and asylum seekers at the hands of the UK immigration authorities. (UK Indymedia)

Asylum seekers are those, in the main, who are escaping war and/or have stood up to tyranny and injustice from their rulers. They are courageous people that need to be admired, not vilified.

Additionally, they are those who have the resourcefulness to escape their environment, overcoming in many cases unimaginable obstacles to make it to Britain. Given half a chance, they have the drive and wherewithal to make a positive contribution to Britain. Forebears of many of our current entrepreneurs and scientists sought asylum here for a variety of reasons and have enriched our society.

Applicants who do not qualify for refugee status under the 1951 UN convention on refugees are guilty of no more than being economic migrants trying to improve their future chances and that of their families. And let us be honest, how many of us would not do the same if we found ourselves under similar circumstances. Sometimes, those whose asylum applications are rejected have to be forcefully removed.

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Hans Köchler

"Quo vadis, humanity?" by Nikolai K., Moscow, Russia, Age: 15

Lecture delivered at the convocation on the occasion of the centenary of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines and the third anniversary of the foundation of the College of Law, Manila, 22 June 2004

(I) From the League of Nations to the United Nations Organization – Compromising the notion of “sovereign equality”

In order to make an assessment of the future prospects of the United Nations Organization, we first have to take a look into the past – at the world organization’s history, but also at international organization as it existed prior to the foundation of the United Nations in 1945.

The relations between states before World War II were characterized by the traumatic experience of the sudden collapse of the old European order of nation-states in the conflagration of the first “world war.” However, the League of Nations, created after that war, could not hold international power politics in check; its Covenant, part of the Peace Treaty of Versailles, did not effectively tame nation-state sovereignty.

The basic challenge before the League consisted in how to integrate the sovereignty of the nation-state into a cooperative international system that is based on the rule of law binding upon all. One of the main achievements of the post-World War I order, in terms of the rule of law, was undoubtedly the ban on the use of force in relations between states through the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928. This treaty was concluded at the initiative of the United States[1] – although this country had never acceded to the League of Nations.

At this point in time, efforts were even made towards the establishment of an international criminal court that, for the first time in history, would have determined individual criminal responsibility outside the confines of national sovereignty; but the respective draft convention, adopted by the Assembly of the League of Nations in 1937,[2] never entered into force.[3]

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