Write a letter to Canada’s UN Ambassador to ask him to support Navi Pillay, Chair of the “Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territories” of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
Bob Rae, Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations, has been asked to help remove Navi Pillay as the Chair of the “Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territories” of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) as part of a pro-Israel call for her removal.
Remind Ambassador Rae that:
Canada stood with the United Nations in its partition of Palestine and creation of the State of Israel. It seems very unfair, however, for Canada to slam the feeble attempts of the UN to ameliorate the effects of the catastrophe brought upon the indigenous Palestinians by these UN actions. It would be only right for Canada to support these attempts by the United Nations.
Canada’s actions often do not align with its stated policy regarding Palestine. Canada has given almost unconditional support to Israel in its human rights abuses – that have been recently documented by Israel’s B’Tselem, New York-based Human Rights Watch and London-based Amnesty International– of the Palestinians in Israel, in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and in the diaspora. The majority of Canadians including many Jewish Canadians want Canada to stand up for justice for Palestinians.
Perhaps this is push back related to the response from Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, in partnership with the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School response to the the call for submissions from the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel. This joint submission analyzes whether the legal regime enforced by Israel in the occupied West Bank violates the prohibition of apartheid under international law.
The Commission of Inquiry was established in May 2021 by the Human Rights Council with the mandate to investigate “all alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law leading up and since 13 April 2021” in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel,
Canada supported the March 4 decision of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to establish a Commission of Inquiry to investigate Russian human rights violations in Ukraine. However, not long ago, Canada expressed “significant concerns” with the UNHRC’s recent Commission of Inquiry into rights violations in the Palestinian territories and Israel.
Urge Ambassador Rae to support the work of the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territories of the United Nations, and its chair Navi Pillay, and not cave in to the attempts of Israel to block its work.
Initiated by:
Bathurst congregation of the United Church of Canada
Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU)
Palestine House – Palestinian Canadian Community Centre
UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré, High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, addresses the opening of the Human Rights Council’s twenty-fourth regular session.
