BEIRUT - A petition calling to amend a law forbidding Palestinian refugees from owning real estate in Lebanon has already collected thousands of signatures, a Palestinian official said Thursday.
"The petition has circulated through the 12 Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon," said Souheil Natour, a member of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and author of a book on the refugees' social and legal conditions.
The petition asks parliamentary deputies to amend "discriminatory and racist" measures of a property law voted on in early 2002 which has attracted a flood of criticism from human rights organizations.
The current legislation forbids the acquisition of real estate by all non-Lebanese persons "who do not possess citizenship issued by a state recognized by Lebanon."
Palestinian refugees are not specifically mentioned, but the aim is clearly to prevent the permanent settlement of the some 390,000 Palestinians in Lebanon, half of whom live in camps.
An attempt to overturn the ban, introduced by 10 deputies, will come before parliament on October 7.
Natour said the amendment "is an important development in making Lebanon conform with the international charter on human rights which it helped draw up in 1946."
"The Lebanese are more and more convinced that the Palestinians do not want permanent residency in their countries of asylum and are working to secure their right to return" to their homes in what is now Israel, he added.
For economic and demographic reasons, Beirut refuses permanent residency to the Palestinian refugees fearing it will tip the delicate religious balance of the country further towards the Muslims.
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