UN Special Rapporteeur Held at Ben Gurion Airport by Israel Authorities

Monday December 15, 2008 11:59 by Justin Theriault - 1 of International Middle East Media Center - IMEMC Editorial Group

On Sunday, December 14, Israeli Authorities held the United Nations Special Rapporteur, Professor Richard Falk, on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and is willing to deport Professor Falk to Geneva this morning, Wafa news agency reported last night.

Professor Falk, permanent observer to the United Nations in Geneva for human rights in the OPT, said in a press release, issued last night, that the Israeli authorities have denied entry to the UN Special Rapporteur into Palestine and Israel.

The press release described that Falk had come to detect Israel's violations of international and international humanitarian laws in the OPT.  Upon his arrival, Israeli Authorities denied him access into Israel and held him in immigration at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.  Israeli authorities are to deport him to Geneva this morning.

This is Falk's first official visit to the OPT and Israel after he was appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to specifically oversee human rights violations in the OPT.  He is currently working on a report about the human rights conditions in the OPT in order to deliver the analysis to the UNHRC’s tenth session in March of 2009.

In April of this year, controversy was afoot as Professor Falk compared Israel’s actions of mass collective punishment in the Gaza Strip, referred to by Falk as an 'atrocity', to the actions of the Nazi’s leading up to and during the Second World War. "If this kind of situation had existed for instance in the manner in which China was dealing with Tibet or the Sudanese government was dealing with Darfur, I think there would be no reluctance to make that comparison,” he said.

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