Media Statement
The UN report on the Israeli assault on Freedom Flotilla of 22 September 2010 prepared by three international experts has categorically declared that, “the May 31 incident, in which nine Turkish activists were killed was unlawful.” The Report was prepared by Judge Karl T. Hudson-Phillips, Q.C., retired Judge of the International Criminal Court and former Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago, Sir Desmond de Silva, Q.C. of the United Kingdom, former Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone and Ms. Mary Shanthi Dairiam of Malaysia, founding member of the Board of Directors of the International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific and former member of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.
Formation of a panel consisting of these three international experts, assigned by the U.N. Human Rights Council to investigate the assault, was important because the Committee reflected wide diversity of opinion. The panel has found evidence of Israel using “an unacceptable level of brutality” and of committing “grave violations of human rights law and international humanitarian law”.
Israel refused to cooperate with the UN panel. It launched its own probe into the assault it said was carried out to enforce a naval blockade on Gaza, and that its troops opened fire in self-defence against activists wielding knives and clubs. Now the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the, “United Nations Report on the Gaza flotilla raid is biased and distorted” and the group responsible for the Report was “obsessed with targeting Israel.” In a statement posted on its web site, the Israeli Foreign Ministry reaffirmed Israel’s shunning of the U.N. Human Rights Council which it denounced as “biased, politicised and extremist,” citing a Council report of last year that condemned an earlier Gaza war.
Under the Oslo Accords, it was agreed that the territorial waters off Gaza would be included in the territorial jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority. But Israel has been demonstrating its military muscle not only by curtailing the Palestinian Authority’s jurisdiction, but also by undermining the international community. It has isolated the people of Gaza, has punished them with phosphorous bombs, denied them most essential life-giving supplies, and when international humanitarian organizations responded to the desperate calls from the people of Gaza, Israel has once again demonstrated its ugly face. How long will Israel continue to fool the international community with false cries of protecting its security? How long will the world powers endure this uncivilized behavior?
Israel through its clout over the international media is trying to suggest that Turkey is responsible for the flotilla incident.
This is perhaps because all except one American of Turkish descent that died in the incident were Turkish nationals. But one must not forget that the hundreds of activists that boarded the flotilla belonged to many nationalities including Irish Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire. Israel seems to have deliberately targeted a Turkish ship with a certain agenda of its own. The international community must now demonstrate that it is not Turkey alone but the whole of humanity that is behind the people of Gaza. The people of the world will not tolerate the injustice committed against the people of Gaza. They will not accept unruly Israeli behaviour any more.
Dr. Abdullah Al-Ahsan,
Vice-President,
International Movement for a Just World (JUST).
Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.
28th September 2010.