ZGram - 4/18/2002 - "Access denied to Amnesty International Forensic Expert"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

April 18, 2002

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

Take note:

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Amnesty International news release: http://www.amnesty.org

Jenin: Access denied to Amnesty International Forensic Expert - legal
action considered

16 April 2002    AI Index :  MDE 15/050/2002

Derrick Pounder, Professor of Forensic Medicine at Dundee University,
currently on mission with Amnesty International, has been.denied access to
Jenin refugee camp and Jenin Government Hospital.

The only forensic pathologist in the vicinity, Professor Pounder had sought
access to the camp in order to begin gathering vital evidence about the
fate of those who died in Jenin.

The Amnesty International delegation had gone to Jenin because of reports
that a major humanitarian and human rights disaster was occurring in the
camp with thousands of people still trapped without food or water in an
area flattened and littered with debris and decomposing bodies.

"There are two urgent tasks. The first is the humanitarian task of
gathering evidence to identify the dead so that the bodies can be given to
the families. The second is to obtain forensic evidence about the causes
and circumstances of death which will clarify what has been happening in
Jenin camp" said Professor Pounder. "International human rights and
humanitarian law require that forensic investigations are conducted in this
respect. The refusal to allow us to conduct or even to assist in enabling
others to conduct such
investigations is very serious and gives rise to questions about the
authorities' motives."

There are only a small number of forensic experts in Israel and among
Palestinians, none of whom are in Jenin or the camp and Amnesty
International is concerned that the longer the bodies deteriorate the less
hard facts and objective evidence will be available about how these people
came to their deaths.

Amnesty International, together with other organisations including Adalah,
the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, is considering legal
action in Israel to ensure that access to Jenin refugee camp and hospital
is granted. The organisation also condemned the authorities' refusal to
allow adequate help into the camp to deal with the survivors, including
many still trapped inside collapsed houses.

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(source: 
http://web.amnesty.org/web/news.nsf/print/D7E166CB6340A28E80256B9D005203D8 
)

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Thought for the Day:

"A bad cause will ever be supported by bad men and bad means."

(Thomas Paine)