Organizations representing Palestinian refugee communities in sixteen countries across the Middle East, Europe and North America handed a letter to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's office on Tuesday 23 September titled “The Rights of Palestinian Refugees and the Final Status Negotiations.” The letter, copies of which were sent to the League of Arab States, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, and the Non-Aligned Movement, comes as the member states of the United Nations begin the September 2008 sessions of the General Assembly and Security Council.

The letter was signed by 78 organizations ranging from refugee camp community centers to refugee rights advocacy groups and Palestinian political parties, including Abbas's own Fatah party. The letter opens with a demand that Abbas make public all details of the negotiation process, stating that such “transparency and candidness of our representatives with all sectors of our society will guarantee that our rights are best defended, and strengthen our position in the face of enormous pressures.”

“The main point we convey to President Abbas in the letter, is the same message we have tried to express to the Palestinian political leadership for the past fifteen years” says Muhammad Jaradat of the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights; “that Palestinian refugees' rights to return, restitution, and compensation are enshrined in international law as both a collective and an individual right that are passed on from one generation to the next, and that only the individual refugee can choose to relinquish them. A central flaw of the negotiation process has been that it has not been based on people's rights as much as has sought to find politically expedient ways of implementing Israeli interests.”

For more information contact:

Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights

Telephone: +972-2-277-7086

Email: mediaenglish@badil.org

Read the letter