NGOs Urge UN to Disclose Firms Involved in Illegal Jewish Settlements

January 15, 2020 News
Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. (Photo: File)

Ramallah-based human rights group Al-Haq released Tuesday a statement urging the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and its chief Michelle Bachelet to publish a database listing companies that “directly and indirectly, enabled, facilitated and profited from the construction and growth of the settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

The database was created in 2016 after the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) voted the resolution 31/36 instructing the OHCHR to create a list of businesses engaged in activities in Israel’s settlements. 

The list should have been submitted to the HCR at its 34th session in March 2017 and updated annually since. However, this was never done.

Al-Haq said:

“After three years since the adoption of resolution 31/36 and more than two years of its initial scheduled release at the 34th HRC session, the OHCHR is yet to release the U.N. database”.

Last year, over 100 human rights groups sent Bachelet a letter demanding the publication of the database.

As renowned journalist, Ramona Wadi wrote in The Palestine Chronicle:

“By delaying publication of this report, Bachelet is sending a clear message to the Palestinians: Israel and its business are to be protected at all costs, even if it means sacrificing more of the indigenous Palestinian population”.

Israel has called the database a blacklist and with the support of the United States, has been diplomatically working behind the scenes to prevent its publication and pressure for its elimination.

(Palestine Chronicle, TeleSur, Social Media)

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