South Africa Endorses Recommendations of UN Human Rights Council’s fact finding mission to Gaza.

Pretoria: The South African Mission to the United Nations participated and delivered a statement on the occasion of the United Nations General Assembly debate on the Report of the Human Rights Council (HRC) which related to the United Nations Human Right Council’s Fact Finding Mission to Gaza on 05 November 2009.

A resolution on this issue was also introduced by Egypt on behalf of the Arab Group. South Africa co-sponsored the resolution as it did in the Human Rights Council and voted in favour of the resolution. The vote on this resolution was called by Israel and the resolution passed with 114 votes.

The resolution calls for endorsing the report of the Human Rights Council, 12th Special Session on the Fact Finding Mission to Gaza, which welcomed the report and endorsed the recommendations contained therein. The resolution further requested the Secretary General of the United Nations to transmit the report to the Security Council. It urged that independent and credible investigations be carried into the serious violations of international humanitarian and international human rights law as contained in the report. And it requests the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly within a period of three months 

The resolution is in line with the position of the South African Government on this issue, who also welcomed the report of the United Nations’ Fact Finding Mission and endorsed the recommendations contained therein.

A copy of the statement delivered by South Africa can be found on the official Mission website http://www.southafrica-newyork.net/pmun

For more information contact Nomfanelo Kota on 082 4593787.

Issued by the Department of International Relations and Cooperation
Private Bag X152
Pretoria, 0001
06 November 2009.