AMMAN, 22 June 2007 — More than 130 Church leaders representing 550 million Christians worldwide yesterday ended a conference in Jordan by calling for an end to Israel’s “illegal occupation” of Palestinian territories.
The three-day meeting, held under the auspices of the World Council of Churches (WCC) endorsed the central committee’s decision to launch the “Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum.”
The forum seeks to “catalyze and coordinate new and existing church advocacy for peace aimed at ending the illegal occupation in accordance with UN resolutions, and demonstrate its commitment to inter-religious action for pace peace and justice that serves all the people of the region,” a WCC statement said.
“Churches have woken up to the issues in the Middle East like never been before. Another time we woke up is when we fought apartheid in Africa. This is another apartheid,” WCC General Secretary Samuel Kobia told reporters. “The WCC core group will reconvene before late September to begin making appeals for immediate action,” he said.
In their “urgent plea,” which stresses the UN resolutions are the basis for peace, the church clerics and affiliated associations vowed to take action as a united front. The document expressed support for the Palestinian self-determination, described the Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories as “illegal and an obstacle to peace” and dubbed the separation barrier built by Israel as “a grave breach of international law.”
The WCC brings together more than 340 churches, denominations and church fellowships in over 100 countries and territories throughout the world, representing some 550 million Christians.
Meanwhile, after months and months of waiting in Jordan, some of the Iraqi refugees have managed to get UN documents that certifies them as a bona fide asylum seekers.
When they applied to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Amman for the all-important asylum seekers’ document — seen by many Iraqi refugees as a free ticket into a Western country — they believed their days of waiting in Jordan would soon be over.
According to UN figures, around 30,000 Iraqis in Jordan have been given asylum seekers’ documents and are currently awaiting a third country to host them. But Western countries have been slow to open their doors to the estimated two million people who have fled Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion to topple dictator Saddam Hussein. Another 1.7 million have fled their homes for safer areas within Iraq.
According to UNHCR, only 2,673 Iraqi refugees have been resettled to date in third countries such as Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and the United States. And the UN refugee agency warns there is unlikely to be any change in the situation soon as the flood of people leaving their homes is swelling rather than slowing.
Of those who have crossed the borders, around one million have fled to Syria and around 750,000 to Jordan, according to the UNHCR. Jordan puts the number at between 350,000 and 400,000. “The best solution is that the situation in Iraq improves to help them (displaced Iraqis) return home,” said Rana Sweis, public information assistant at the UNCHR office in Amman.
In another development, the health of a former Jordanian MP held in jail for branding the regime of King Abdallah as “corrupt” has deteriorated since he went on hunger strike last week, his lawyer said yesterday. “The health condition of my client Ahmad Abbadi has worsened as a result of a hunger strike he has been waging since Saturday,” Omar Alwan told AFP.
“I failed to convince him to end the hunger strike when I visited him on Wednesday,” he said, adding that his client suffers from high blood pressure and diabetes. Police spokesman Maj. Bashir Daaja said that Abbadi, who has been in jail since May 3, has been refusing to eat, drink or take medicine “in protest at his detention conditions.”
