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ISESCO
to UN: Treat Palestinian Schools As You Treated Afghanistan’s
Statues
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| Even this pre-school nursery was not spared the Israeli war-machine |
RABAT,
April 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – The director general of
the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO)
called upon its UN counterpart to take responsibility of the
deteriorating conditions of Palestinian education institutions.
In
a statement published on the organization’s website, Dr. Abdulaziz
Othman Altwaijri told his counterpart: “The United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – UNESCO - which
you are chairing at this very sensitive point of time in the history
of mankind, is invited more than any time past to move in the right
direction and assume its historical responsibilities towards the
Palestinian children and youth.”
The
Palestinians, he said, are denied their lawful and natural human
rights guaranteed to them by the international law and by all relevant
international conventions. This especially includes the right to
education, stripped by the Israeli occupation authorities which wage
an ugly, savage war against helpless Palestinian populations, under
official instructions from the Prime Minister Sharon who, commits
untold crimes against humanity.
Altwaijri
said that “hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children and youth
(boys and girls alike) were being forcibly denied access to their
schools, faculties, colleges, polytechnics, etc. indifferently
throughout Palestine, in the West Bank, in Gaza Strip, in towns, in
villages and in the countryside. These youth were doomed to lead an
unbearable life of misery and despair.”
The
Director General pointed out that UNESCO has, of late, taken urgent
steps at different international levels to salvage the monuments in
Afghanistan for they constituted an historic human heritage and that
now it was time for UNESCO to take urgent action in order to save the
lives of millions of Palestinians, to salvage the human civilization
threatened by destruction in the Palestinian territories and to save
Palestinian school children.
“The
Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization will stand
by UNESCO and will support and back up the positions which it would
hopefully take urgently,” he said.
He
noted that it was clear that the aggression perpetrated by Israeli
Prime Minister Sharon in the Palestinian territories was by all
ethical, legal and political standards an awful crime against
humanity.
Dr.
Abdulaziz Othman Altwaijri went on saying: “The grave situation that
the Palestinian people is wading through at these difficult days, and
more specifically the four hundred thousand Palestinian pupils and
students, requires on your part that you take every action to bring
pressure to bear on the Israeli government, through the Israeli
Ministry of Education and National Commission, to lift the sanctions
on Palestinian pupils and students and secure for them their
legitimate, inalienable right to free and open education that would
not be disrupted by any exceptional measures taken by Israeli
authorities.”
The
world - he noted - was expecting a bold position that UNESCO would
take in order to extend urgent aid and adequate support to the
Palestinian school children who must be able to go back to their
schools and faculties to pursue their studies in all tranquillity, the
statement said.
On
April 1, the ISESCO issued a statement strongly condemning crimes
perpetrated by Sharon against the Palestinians and demanded his
dissuasion and trial before an international court.
“The
radical Israeli government is waging a comprehensive, mass destruction
war against the Palestinian people and their legitimate leadership,
committing thereby untold crimes in unprecedented defiance of the
international conventions and resolutions, and sheer disrespect of the
recent Arab initiative adopted by the Arab League Summit.
“The
Organization appeals to the Muslim world, to all justice and
peace-loving nations and to all international organizations to rise to
the help of the Palestinian people, by means of extending support and
assistance to them, securing international protection for them and
ensuring implementation of relevant international resolutions
requiring Israel to pull out of the occupied Arab territories and
affirming the right to establish an independent Palestinian Sate with
Al-Quds (Jerusalem) as capital, as part of promotion of global peace
and security.”
On
March 5, the Palestinian Ministry of Education officially complained
to the United Nations the Israeli aggression killing of students
and Palestinian children.
The
complaint was filed a day after the wife of Sheikh Hussein Abu Kuwaik
and her three children were killed by a missile fired from an Israeli
tank while they were on their way back from school.
The
same complaint would also be forwarded to the UNESCO, UNICEF and
Amnesty International said the statement issued by the ministry and
published by news agencies.
The
Ministry asked human rights organizations and the international
community to intervene to put a halt to the killing of Palestinian
children adding that since the start of the intifada nearly 435
children were killed, 150 of them students, and 148 schools were
shelled.
The
teachers were also harassed on their way to school as Israeli forces
completely block roads leading to them.
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