GENEVA – Geneva Council for Rights and Justice (GCRJ) today issued a report calling on the Lebanese authorities to introduce fundamental legal amendments to improve the lives of Palestinian refugees in the country.
The Geneva Council, an international human rights organization, said in its report that some 400,000 Palestinian refugees were living in Lebanon without issuing a few laws and decrees related to them, leaving a legal void that would lead to their poor conditions.
The 1948 Nakba (the displacement that followed the establishment of the State of Israel) had consequences that had a profound impact on the lives of Palestinians and their descendants even after several years. Compared to refugees elsewhere in the world, refugees living in Lebanon in particular face an unprecedented state of political, economic and social exclusion.
In addition, more than half the Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon have no choice but to live in squalid and overcrowded camps, and the rest live in 27 other communities.
The Human Rights Council stressed that overstatement in the fear of resettlement among groups in the Lebanese authority and people led to the failure to offer solutions to deprive the human rights and social rights of the Palestinians in Lebanon, and caused many tragedies and dilemmas that can not be resolved.
GCRJ noted that the establishment of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon was not limited to the Lebanese authority to grant only minimum civil rights, but made new decisions that made these rights constantly disappeared.
In the report, GCRJ reviewed models of Lebanese laws that affect the conditions of Palestinians in housing, , work, social security, real estate, education, democratic freedoms, free professions and other fields.
Geneva Council for Rights and Justice stressed the need to grant Palestinian refugees in Lebanon their basic rights in light of the prevention of the resettlement of Palestinians in Lebanon explicitly since the Taif Agreement in 1989.
It stressed that the Palestinians in Lebanon agree unanimously to accept the rejection of citizenship in exchange for their civil rights such as the right to freedom of work in any of the areas to be treated and compensated like the Lebanese employees.
The council also urged that the international community should provide the necessary support to the Lebanese government so that it can grant Palestinian refugees their basic rights, including allowing them to lead decent lives while their case is resolved to return to their places of origin.
The full text of the report is available at http://genevacouncil.com//2019/01/29/%D9%84%D8%A8%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%86-2/
