From: ilyess@ECE.Concordia.CA (Ilyess Bdira)
Subject: Some deportees were already sentenced: Human right group.
Organization: ECE - Concordia University
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 16:12:57 GMT

This piece of information may bother some of you, but I will post it anyway!
From clarinet:

In article <israel-deportationsU3JC835ae@clarinet.com> clarinews@clarinet.com (JONATHAN FERZIGER) writes:
 	JERUSALEM (UPI) -- A U.S.-based human rights group called on Israel
 Tuesday to rescind its deportation of more than 400 Palestinians to
 Lebanon, charging the mass expulsion was ``fraught with errors...and
 breaches of domestic and international law.''
 	The criticism by Middle East Watch, outlined in a 10-page report, was
 based on interviews with 31 of the deportees, who said they were living
 in a freezing ``snake pit'' between Israeli and Lebanese army lines and
 suffering from hunger and a variety of illnesses.
 	``We believe the obligation is on Israel to return these people. We
 believe there is no way out of this,'' Andrew Whitley, the group's
 executive director, said at a news conference.
 	Whitley accused the Israeli government of carrying out the Dec. 17
 expulsion -- which it termed a two-year ``temporary removal'' -- with
 little regard to the rights of the accused to a fair trial and to the
 Fourth Geneva Convention's banning of ``individual or mass forcible
 transfers, as well as deportations.''
 	He challenged Israel to prove that the deportees were leaders of the
 Hamas and Islamic Jihad organizations, banned because they advocate
 violent means to overthrow the government and set up an Islamic state.
 	``They on the whole people appear to be professional individuals,''
 Whitley said.
 	``Some of them indeed may have had violent criminal records. We don't
 know all of them ... but it seems to us that the sorts of people who
 have been arrested, while they openly acknowledge their sympathy for
 these organizations, appear to have been deported because they were the
 easier ones to deport.''
 	Whitley said Israel has still not provided a trustworthy list of the
 deportees, adding that the account provided had at least 15
 discrepancies when compared to the deportees own census.
 	He said several of the deportees were taken out of prison where they
 were serving sentences, thus being punished twice for the same crime in
 violation of legal norms.
 	``It was fraught with errors,'' he said. ``A number of specific
 breaches of domestic and international law appear to have been taken
 place.''
 	Israel's Supreme Court has twice refused to stop the expulsion and is
 due to rule on its legality under Israeli law on Jan. 17.
 	The Middle East Watch representative, identified only as a Saudi
 resident of the United States, spent two weeks in contact with the
 deportees and carried out 31 in-depth interviews with them. Wheatley
 said he could vouch for the man's accuracy and fairness.
 	While Middle East Watch held Israel responsible for the return of the
 deportees, it said Lebanon also violated the Geneva Convention by
 preventing international humanitarian groups from bringing food and
 supplies to the tent camp.
 	According to the report, about half of the deportees are imams
 (prayer leaders), religious scholars, or Islamic law judges. Fifteen are
 university professors, 14 are medical doctors and 16 are on the staff of
 UNWRA, the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees. The
 remainder are school teachers, businessmen, students or manual workers.
 	The report said the tent camp in Marj al-Zouyour, Lebanon, has been
 nicknamed the ``snake pit'' because it is infested with snakes. It said
 the tents that were supplied to the deportees when they first arrived
 were not designed to withstand the heavy rains and snow that have
 battered the camp, soaking mattresses and blankets.
>	Unsanitary conditions may be responsible for more than 60 cases of
 stomach and intestinal ailments reported by camp doctors, the report
 said.