Palestinian Refugees Rights Series (5)

Transcription

1 Palestinian Refugees Rights Series (5) 2014

2 (1) Undocumented Palestinians in Lebanon (Non-ID Refugees) 1- The Palestinian community formation in Lebanon (an overview) The Palestinian community in Lebanon much the same as other refugees communities in Arab host countries came into existence following the Palestinian Nakba (dispossession) and the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, and the subsequent developments of the Arab-Zionist conflict. The number of Palestinian refugees who fled to Lebanon shortly before 1948 and up to 1950, according to most estimates ranges from 110 thousand to 130 thousand refugees forming about 10% of the total population of Lebanon. The majority of this wave s refugees were registered in the lists of the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1948 and in UNRWA's Registration System in Also, they were enrolled in the lists of the Central Committee created by the President of the Lebanese Republic in 1948, to administer the affairs of the Palestinian refugees, and afterwards in the records of the General Directorate of the Department of Palestinian Refugee Affairs, established in Other Palestinian refugees came to Lebanon from Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the Tripartite Aggression on Egypt in This category of refugees was covered by the joint census carried out by UNRWA and the Department of Palestinian Refugee Affairs in 1962, and their residency status with others who were not included in the listings of 1948 and 1952 was settled. An additional wave of refugees came to Lebanon from Jordan after 1969, following the legitimization of Palestinian guerrillas freedom of action in Lebanon (the signing of the Cairo Agreement in 1969) and in the wake of the departure of the forces of the Palestinian revolution from Jordan as a result of the September 1970 fierce clashes with the Jordanian army. Most of those who arrived in Lebanon were fighters in the ranks of the Palestinian factions. The influx of Palestinian refugees to Lebanon has continued in the period prior to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, and especially during the years of civil war. The majority of these new arrivals were holding either Egyptian travel documents or Jordanian passports. Some of the Palestinians who sought refuge in Lebanon after 1969 have managed to register themselves in the Department of Palestinian Refugee Affairs, in particular, during the period between 1971 and 1975, pursuant to resolutions issued by the Ministry of Interior. Their registration was called administrative registration.

3 (2) According to UNRWA statistics, the number of Palestinian refugees registered with the Agency until 03/31/2013 is 476, 566 refugees, with a little more than half of them (53%) are living in the 12 camps, spread throughout Lebanon, while the rest of them (47%) live in the cities and in a number of communities and clusters, especially in the South of Lebanon. However, the number of Palestinian refugees registered with the General Directorate of the Department of Refugee Affairs (currently, the General Directorate of Political and Refugees Affairs) is larger than of those registered with UNRWA by about 35,000 refugees according to known estimates. This number refers to the existence of other category/ categories of Palestinian refugees registered with the Directorate of Political and Refugees Affairs without being registered with UNRWA for various reasons, including: UNRWA refusal to register them because they are registered in other areas of UNRWA's operations, or for not meeting the eligibility criteria set out to register with UNRWA, and sometimes for not coming forward and applying to register despite their eligibility for registration. 2 - Three categories of Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon The first category: refugees who are registered with the General Directorate of the Department of Palestinian Refugee Affairs and with UNRWA. This category forms the main group of Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon. Usually they are referred to as refugees of The Lebanese authorities consider the members of this category as legally residing in Lebanese territory and grant them blue identity cards / residency permits issued by the General Directorate of Political and Refugees Affairs and a travel document issued by the Lebanese General Security allowing them to return to Lebanon for the duration of its validity of five years. The second category: refugees who are registered only with the General Directorate of the Department of Palestinian Refugee Affairs without being registered with UNRWA. It is the second largest category in terms of number 1 UNRWA's definition of a Palestinian refugee is an operational definition and not a legal one, as it is exclusively related to the eligibility of a person to benefit from the relief services provided by UNRWA. This definition has evolved since the establishment of UNRWA to become today as follows: A Palestinian refugee is any person whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.

4 (3) and often referred to as refugees of They are given as in the first category blue identity cards / residency permits. But unlike the members of the first category, their travel document is of different type (Laissez Passer) with a validity of one year. The third category: refugees who are not registered either with the General Directorate of the Department of Palestinian Refugee Affairs or with UNRWA. It is the smallest category in numbers, and referred to as Non-ID refugees. The Lebanese authorities usually do not grant Palestinians in this category any kind of identification documents, except for a card issued by the Directorate of the General Security as a proof of identity. They see the stay of these refugees in the Lebanese territory as de facto situation, but consider them as well as illegal residents in the country. 3 - Institutional framework governing the Palestinian presence in Lebanon In order to regulate the Palestinian presence in Lebanon, the Lebanese government has established a special administrative apparatus which has evolved since 1948 as follows: The Central Committee for Refugee Affairs. It was created by the Legislative Decree No issued by the President of the Lebanese Republic on (26/4/1948). This was the first decree issued by the Lebanese authorities to regulate Palestinian refugee status in Lebanon. The Department of Palestinian Refugee Affairs. It was established by the Legislative Decree No. 42 issued by the President of the Lebanese Republic (31/03/1959), with its Article 1 stipulating the establishment of a department within the Lebanese Ministry of Interior to manage Palestinian affairs with its powers to be renewed by decree. Simultaneously Decree No. 927 was issued to define the tasks of the Department/ General Directorate. In the same context, the Decree No was issued on 16/12/1959, which determined the Department structure and the tasks of its General Director. In 2010 the Lebanese government passed the Decree No. 4082, which renamed the General Directorate of Palestinian Refugee Affairs as Directorate of Political affairs and Refugees. The new designation has not led to any change in the office tasks on a practical level.

5 (4) The Higher Committee for Palestinian Affairs. It was created by the presidential Decree No issued on 26/4 /1960, and was placed under the supervision of the Foreign Affairs and Emigrants Minister. This Committee is a political body in nature rather than an administrative, for that same Decree pointed out that the Committee is not a substitute for the Department of Palestinian Refugee Affairs and stressed that its authorities should not overlap with the powers granted to that Department. 4 - Legal framework governing the Palestinian presence in Lebanon The Lebanese law treats Palestinian refugees as foreigners, and sometimes a special category of foreigners with its selective application or arbitrary enforcement, leading to denying them even some rights granted to foreigners themselves (for example: in 2001, Palestinians in Lebanon were stripped of the right to own property). Practically, this situation deprives the Palestinian refugees of basic human rights that should be enjoyed by refugees according to international refugee law and other relevant international instruments. Some jurists draw the attention to the huge gap between the International Law norms for refugees and those applicable in Lebanese legislation. This legislation does not grant the refugees in general any specific legal status and does not even define the term refugee. Lebanon has not signed nor ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention. Those jurists are underscoring the need for harmonization of Lebanese legislation with international standards in order to establish more solid criteria for the rights of Palestinian refugees based on their lengthy stay in Lebanon. This could be done through the establishment of a separate legal status for Palestinian refugees that distinguishes them from foreigners. 5 - Who are the Non-IDs Refugees: their categories and legal status? The Non-ID holders belong to the third category of Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon, as previously explained. However, there is not a unified definition or a common concept for this category, not even an agreement about precise designation to be adopted by the Lebanese government, civil society and human rights organizations. But the term "Undocumented Refugees" is the most commonly used as most of the refugees do not own any form of identification documents that could form a valid basis to recognize their legal identity in

6 (5) Lebanon. In some cases, the refugees own expired identification documents but they cannot be renewed due to the refusal of issuing authorities. Using my own discretion, the Non-ID holders could be briefly defined as follows: They are a category of Palestinians living with de facto residence status in Lebanon. They do not enjoy the right to legal residence, their legal personality is not recognized by the Lebanese authorities, i.e., they do not have identity cards issued by the General Directorate of Political and Refugees Affairs. If we speak in detail about the definition, we could say that these refugees might have identification documents that had been issued by other countries, but do not entitle them to return to those countries, and cannot serve as a basis for a residence or any legal status in Lebanon (just like the citizens of those countries). These refugees are not registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, even though they might be registered in other areas of UNRWA's operations. The Lebanese authorities and thus UNRWA do not agree to transfer their registration to Lebanon. Moreover, they may not be registered with UNRWA at all. There is no exact figure regarding their actual number with some of media and security circles tend to exaggerate the number. The widespread number, however, according to most estimates is ranging from 3,000 to 5,000 people. In the light of the foregoing, the Non-ID refugees category does not constitute a homogenous group. The majority of this category members can be classified into several sub-categories, including: 1. Palestinians holding identity cards, valid or expired, issued by Jordanian authorities, but they are unable for various reasons to return to the Hashemite Kingdom. 2. Palestinians from the Gaza Strip with identity documents issued by the Egyptian authorities, who are not allowed to stay in Egypt, as well as they cannot return to the Gaza Strip. 3. Palestinians carry identification documents issued by the Iraqi authorities have left Iraq because of the violence and persecution they had suffered there. 4. Palestinians expelled by Israel from the occupied Palestinian territories (West Bank and Gaza) and does not allow them to return thereto. 5. and others...

7 (6) 6 - Real situation of this category, magnitude of the problem and attempts and efforts to solve it This category of Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon is the most vulnerable among the categories of Palestinian community, which is by and large exposed to various forms of marginalization: economic marginalization, imposing severe restrictions on Palestinians right to work, social security; institutional marginalization which excludes Palestinians from fully participating in all aspects of social and cultural life, and spatial marginalization which transforms Palestinian refugee camps to islands almost isolated from the surrounding areas. The present category of Palestinian refugees faces quite serious problems including those related to freedom of movement and travel, arrest and detention, and other issues related to civil status such as obtaining birth certificates or the conclusion of marriage or enrolling their children in schools and other official procedures. Not to mention the problems they are facing in terms of difficulty in accessing employment opportunities and benefiting from educational and health services provided by UNRWA. Thanks to the initiative of Palestinian and Lebanese civil society that the issue of this category of Palestinian refugees has been raised with its legal and humanitarian dimensions on the Lebanese governmental level (Lebanese Palestinian Dialogue Committee), the official Palestinian level (PLO and the Embassy of Palestine), the Arab level (Arab host countries and the Arab League) and on the international level (UNRWA and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). Here, we should point out the early efforts made by the Palestinian Human Rights Organization PHRO and the leading and fruitful efforts exerted by Frontiers Ruwad Association individually or in partnership with the Center for Refugee Rights Aidoun and in coordination with the Lebanese Palestinian Dialogue Committee. Frontiers Ruwad Association started in 2005 the preparation of a first of its kind comprehensive legal study on the case of Non-ID Palestinians. The study was published in English and Arabic in 2006 under the title of Falling through the Cracks: Legal and Practical Gaps in Palestinian Refugee Status: A case study of unrecognized refugees in Lebanon. The study was succeeded by a conference of experts and specialists in the field in This was followed, in the same year, by the launch of a Palestinian and Lebanese civil society groups campaign asking the competent Lebanese authorities, especially the Lebanese Palestinian

8 (7) Dialogue Committee to consider this problem and to put forward solutions at the local level. The efforts of Frontiers Ruwad Association in partnership with the Center for Refugee Rights Aidoun and in coordination with the Lebanese Palestinian Dialogue Committee were culminated in holding a regional conference at the American University of Beirut (6-7 October 2010) titled Undocumented Palestinian Refugees: A Common Regional Plight attended by representatives of Arab host countries, the Arab League and relevant regional and international organizations. As a matter of fact, the Embassy of Palestine in Lebanon began in 2006, providing identification certificates or proof of nationality certificates for non-id Palestinian refugees after presenting a proof of being of Palestinian origin and that they arrived to Lebanon after 1967 from Jordan and the Gaza Strip. As a result of contacts and negotiations between the Lebanese Palestinian Dialogue Committee, PLO and the Palestinian Embassy in 2007, the Lebanese authorities, represented by Lebanese General Security decided to issue Identification Cards for undocumented non-id Palestinians valid for one year and renewable, provided that the holders apply to General Security and to append all required documents, with each case subjected to investigation. The card issuing process takes about two months. Beginning from 2008, the registration process and the issuance of cards began, but to be subsequently suspended in October of the same year. The Interior Minister Ziad Baroud attributed then the discontinuation for purely technical reasons rather than political reasons, in order to limit the fraudulent applications, and promised to resume the process within one month. However, this promise has not been kept, with the process been resumed only in February Therefore, the people who received Identification Cards in 2008 had to resubmit their applications once again. In the absence of documented official information, it is estimated that the number of applications for Identification Cards submitted to the General Security ranges between 1750 and 2200, but the number of cards issued by the said authority was between 765 and 875 cards. About 300 applications were rejected, in addition to about 300 other cards that had been issued but not delivered to their applicants. According to the information of Lebanese Palestinian Dialogue Committee in 2012, 995 Palestinians only have obtained these cards. The current

9 (8) chairmanship of the Dialogue Committee confirms that it is about to reactivate this issue and that the coordination is underway with the relevant security authorities to consider the possibility of resuming the issuance of identification cards, while taking into account all the considerations and concerns about security. 7 - Advantages and shortcomings of holding Identification Cards According to the understanding between the PLO and the Embassy of Palestine on the one hand and the Lebanese Palestinian Dialogue Committee on the other hand, this card holder should enjoy the freedom of movement within Lebanon, while traveling abroad shall require very exceptional approval and applications would be considered on a case-by-case basis. Regarding to education, the Lebanese Ministry of Education has agreed to accept the Identification Card as an ID to enroll in schools, colleges and universities. UNRWA also agreed to adopt the card for enrollment in their own schools and health clinics, which qualifies the holder to benefit from the education and medical care services (not hospitalization) provided to other refugees. The same applies to the Palestinian Red Crescent hospitals, but on a case-by-case basis. This is in addition to the accorded right of registering marriages and births. The Identification Card does not entitle its holder to be recognized as a refugee in Lebanon along like the members of the first and second categories who are registered with the Directorate of Political and Refugees Affairs, but to be recognized as persons without identity documents free to travel within the Lebanese territory. This means that the card does not grant the holder a stable legal status, especially with the decision of issuing it being an administrative decision that remains vulnerable to political changes. The General Security can refuse to grant the card to any refugee and without giving reasons, for considerations that are often related to security. It is certain that the card shall not be granted to any person who is subject to judicial measures (civil or criminal), or any person who holds a refugee card issued by UNRWA in any area of the Agency s operations, or holds another citizenship or an Egyptian or Jordanian travel document that has been expired for more than three years. Besides, it seems that when the General Security rejects some applications because the applicants possess a travel document, it does not take into account that it might not be possible to renew those documents or to enter the document issuing country.

10 (9) 8 - Proposed solutions and recommendations First - Lebanese authorities Lebanese authorities should: 1. State the criteria adopted to obtain the Identification Card, in addition to required mechanism and procedures to apply and obtain the card, as well as issuing regular statistics on the subject. 2. Clarify the rights and duties of Identification Card holder in order to avoid any ambiguity. 3. Re-examine pending / stalled applications and resume the acceptance of new applications and renewal of expired cards. 4. Consider the possibility of granting refugee status to holders of Identification Cards by allowing their registration administratively with the Directorate of Political and Refugees Affairs, or to coordinate with UNRWA by allowing the transfer of registration from other areas of UNRWA operations to Lebanon. 5. Allow the registration with the Directorate of Political and Refugees Affairs of the husband and children of Palestinian woman registered in Lebanon and married to an undocumented person. Second - The Arab League The Arab League should: 1. Include the subject of Non-ID Palestinian refugees as permanent item on the agenda of the Conference of Palestinian Affairs Supervisors held periodically within the framework of the Arab League, and to closely coordinate and cooperate with Lebanon and the authorities of other concerned host countries, in order to reach lasting and common solution to the lack of legal recognition of the Non-ID Palestinians, a problem with a regional dimension. Third - UNRWA and other relevant United Nations organizations 1. Coordination between UNRWA and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is needed in order to provide protection for Palestinian refugees in UNRWA's areas of operations, including Lebanon,

11 (10) who do not meet UNRWA's operational definition of Palestine refugee. 2. Ask the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to provide the required protection for Non-ID Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, whereas, although some of them get UNRWA services under certain conditions, but their registration in other UNRWA's areas of operations does not provide them with all UNRWA services enjoyed by other Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA in Lebanon. Conclusions: The following general conclusions can be drawn from the foregoing: As there are some ambiguities in the definition of Non-ID refugees category, even in how to call them, the parties involved need to have further discussion among themselves in order to reach a common universally acceptable definition. As the issue of Non-ID refugees is multidimensional in nature, addressing the problem may not be limited to the legal side, but it should go beyond that to have all social, economic, security and political aspects addressed in a comprehensive way. As the problem is of regional dimensions, finding a lasting solution is a shared regional responsibility, which requires the identification of this responsibility frameworks and their interrelationship. Thus, the solution shall be combined and coordinated between the various parties involved as an inevitable result of the shared responsibility. The Arab League has a great responsibility to give this issue the attention it deserves and find a lasting and coordinated solution through Conference of Palestinian Affairs Supervisors in the Arab host countries.

12 The Centre for Refugee Rights/ Aidoun (CRR) is an independent non-govermmental organization registered in Lebanon (AD No. 1623/2008) to serve as a resource centre for basic human rights of Palestinian refugees, focusing on the right of return. The CRR incorporated Aidoun Group established in November 1999 to advocate for the Palestinian refugees right to return. Released by: Center for Redugee Rights/ Aidoun 1 - Beirut: Tareek Aljadeda, near the Arab University, Iskandarani building, floor Beirut: Mar Elias Camp - the western entrance - near Dalal Moghrabi Pharmacy TeleFax: 01/ info@aidoun.org Website: www. aidoun.org P.O.Box; 14/6701 All Copyright are reserved supported by Norwegian People s Aid Prepared by Jaber Suleiman