By Dalila Mahdawi
Daily Star staff
Friday, November 27, 2009
BEIRUT: Efforts to secure the “right to return” for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are being hampered by their restricted access to human rights, a top UN official said Wednesday. Fateh Azzam, Middle East regional representative of the UN Office of the Higher Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Beirut and a registered Palestinian refugee, said the struggle of daily life for many refugees weakened their ability to present a strong and united front at the negotiation table with Israel.
“An empowered refugee community can be stronger advocates for right to return, than one that is more worried about daily concerns or survival,” Azzam said.
His comments were made at a talk organized by the American University of Beirut’s Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs (IFI), which is developing a program regarding the UN in the Arab region, IFI Associate Director Dr. Karim Makdissi said.
There are over 422,000 Palestinian refugees registered in Lebanon, living mostly in overcrowded and squalid refugee camps. There are also an unknown number of non-registered Palestinians who fall outside of the scope of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), and as a result are even more vulnerable to chronic poverty.
An additional 40,000 Palestinians reside in 42 so-called “gatherings,” or ghettoized neighborhoods consisting of 25 or more Palestinian houses.
Unlike their compatriots in Jordan or Syria, Palestinians in Lebanon do not have any legal status and have almost no access to medical, education or social services outside UNWRA’s provision.
The refugee population is subject to severe restrictions of movement, forbidden from owning or repairing property and are barred from all but the most menial professions.
“The situation in Lebanon [for Palestinians] is much more difficult [than elsewhere in the region] … they probably have the hardest time enjoying their dignity” and human rights, Azzam said.
Azzam gave support to an argument put forward by the well-known refugee-law scholar James Hathaway, who has argued that the longer a refugee has to stay in a host country, the more rights they should accrue.
Still, despite spending more than 60 years of limbo in Lebanon, “it’s not often that you hear [people] in high political office talking about rights for Palestinians,” the OHCHR official said.
But with Lebanon party to more than seven major international conventions, Beirut “has obligations not just to its citizens but to all those under its jurisdiction,” he added.
Lebanon, however, is not a party to the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which details the rights of individuals who are granted asylum and the responsibilities of the countries that host refugees.
Azzam noted the financial, logistical and infrastructural difficulties faced by asylum-granting countries, saying the international community had a duty to assist in the protection of refugees.
The talk came two weeks after IFI invited Karen AbuZayd, outgoing Commissioner UNRWA for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, to speak about Palestinian refugees in the Middle East and the pressing need for greater rights for the refugee population in Lebanon.
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