Facts About Israeli Apartheid [index]



What is Apartheid?

Apartheid (Afrikaner for separateness) was a system of legal racial, economic and social segregation enforced by the government of South Africa between 1948 and 1994, under which the majority 'non-white' inhabitants of South Africa were dominated and oppressed, while the rights and privileges of white people were maintained. Read more on Apartheid in South Africa.

The word has come to be associated with the brutal practice of the South African government during that time. There are similarities, as well as some differences, between what happened in South Africa during that time and what is happening now in Israel/Palestine. On this web site, we will be using the United Nations definition from the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression of Apartheid and the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court which defines apartheid as a crime against humanity.

You can see the documents on the UN website:
  • 1973 International Convention on the Suppression of Apartheid [view]
  • 2002 Rome Statute [view]

  • You may also see the summaries below:

    International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid
    Adopted and opened for signature, ratification by General Assembly resolution 3068 (XXVIII) of 30 Nov. 1973, entry into force 18 July 1976.
    For the purpose of the present Convention, the term "the crime of apartheid", which shall include similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practiced in southern Africa, shall apply to the following inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them:
    • Denial to a member or members of a racial group or groups of the right to life and liberty of person:
      • By murder of members of a racial group or groups;
      • By the infliction upon the members of a racial group or groups of serious bodily or mental harm, by the infringement of their freedom or dignity, or by subjecting them to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;
      • By arbitrary arrest and illegal imprisonment of the members of a racial group or groups;
    • Deliberate imposition on a racial group . . . of living conditions calculated to cause its or their physical destruction in whole or in part;
    • Any legislative measures and other measures calculated to prevent a racial group or groups from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country and the deliberate creation of conditions preventing the full development of such a group or groups, in particular by denying to members of a racial group or groups basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to work, the right to form recognized trade unions, the right to education, the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association;
    • Any measures, including legislative measures, designed to divide the population along racial lines by the creation of separate reserves and ghettos for the members of a racial group or groups, the prohibition of mixed marriages among members of various racial groups, the expropriation of landed property belonging to a racial group or groups or to members thereof;
    • Exploitation of the labour of the members of a racial group or groups, in particular by submitting them to forced labour;
    • Persecution of organizations and persons, by depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms, because they oppose apartheid.

    The crime of apartheid, a crime against humanity, is defined by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime."
     



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