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Dissidents & Rights Groups Reject Syrian Report
MEDIA Release The UN's Third Committee on Human
Rights meets this month in New York. Sponsors of the draft
resolution include well-known former political prisoners
Yang Jianli of China, Ahmad Batebi of Iran, Fidel Suarez
Cruz and Berta Antunez of Cuba, Rebiya Kadeer of the Uyghur
people and Grace Kwinjeh of Zimbabwe, as well as UN Watch,
the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights, Human Rights
Foundation and Viet Tan. The text was drafted at a recent summit of
dissidents held in New York during the UN General
Assembly, which included an opening address by Syrian rights
activist Rami Nakhleh. The draft resolution, circulated
this morning to UN member states, urges the creation of a
permanent UN investigator (Special Rapporteur) on the human
rights situation in Syria.
The text “strongly
condemns” the “ongoing, grave and systematic human
rights Violations” by the Syrian authorities, including
“arbitrary executions, excessive use of force, the killing
and persecution of peaceful protesters and human rights
defenders,arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances,
torture and ill-treatment of detainees, including
children.” Hillel Neuer, executive director of the
Geneva-based UN Watch, which heads the coalition, said that
Syria’s submission to today’s UN review was
“fictional,” and “insulting to the memory of more than
2,000 innocent Syrian citizens who sacrificed their lives
for the basic values of human dignity and freedom from
oppression.” Neuer cited several examples of
“Orwellian” statements in Syria’s
submission: “All citizens have the right to
freedom of peaceful assembly and protest…” “All
citizens have the right to express their views freely and
openly in the spoken or written word or by any other
means” Syria described the recent peaceful protests
as “criminal attacks against the nation and the people by
armed terrorist groups” “The Syrian Arab Republic
provides an environment in which civil society participation
in national socio-economic development is
encouraged” Syria “exercised the utmost
self-restraint” and “refrained from shooting on groups
in order to avoid killing innocent civilians.”
“The enclosed report shows just how committed the Syrian
Arab Republic is to promoting and protecting human
rights…” Neuer said Syria’s submission followed the
“big lie approach to propaganda, which holds that the
bigger the lie, the more it will be believed. But the regime
is wrong, and its days are counted. We urge the UN to take
action to hasten an end to the mass murder of Syria’s
citizens.”
Dissidents & Rights Groups Reject
Syrian Report,
GENEVA, Oct. 7 –
As the UN Human Rights Council this morning began its
quadrennial review of Syria’s human rights record, a
coalition of 20 famous dissidents and rights groups today
rejected Syria’s
submission as “fictional,” and circulated a draft
resolution to all 193 UNGA member states to “strongly
condemn” Syria’s mass killing of its own citizens.
Proposed UNGA
Resolution on Situation of Human Rights in
Syria.
www.unwatch.org
UN Watch is a
Geneva-based human rights organization founded in 1993 to
monitor UN compliance with the principles of its Charter. It
is accredited as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in
Special Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social
Council (ECOSOC) and as an Associate NGO to the UN
Department of Public Information (DPI).
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