The United Nations Office at Geneva
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HRC57 - Human Rights in Syria - 20 September 2024
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16:09
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Interactive dialogue with the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the Syrian Arab Republic, on its latest report, at the 57th session of the Human Rights Council.
Statements from:
- Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, Chair, COI Syria
- Haydar Ali Ahmad, Permanent Representative of Syria to the UN Office at Geneva
Teleprompter
It is my pleasure to welcome the members of the commission. Mr Polo Sergio
Pinheiro,
Ms Lyn Welchman
and Mr Hani Meli.
I now invite you, Mr Paulo Sergio Pinero to present the report.
You have the floor, sir.
Mr.
President,
before I deliver my introductory remarks,
let me express our deep consternation
and extreme frustration
for not being able to engage with you fully
in the idea now
or on Monday morning when the ID resumes,
our Geneva schedule was planned on the assumption that you to be concluded today.
We think it is unbefitting
of the intense gravity of the situation in Syria today
that our in person engagement with the Council has in effect been reduced to this.
My opening remarks that I began
to present to you
as water, attention and resources shift to all the other grave political
monar crisis. Syria descends further in a quagmire of misery and despair,
multiple failures and missed opportunities.
We have seen 13 years of internal armed conflict brought about
by the senior state's violent and
repressive response to peaceful demonstrations.
Our report documents arbitrary detentions with
state officials continuing to forcibly disappear,
torture or and ill treated detainees in their custody.
Despite the
ICJ's
order
in November last year that Syria seized torture online,
activists and journalists are detained, often in Communicado,
for criticising the government.
Officials and intermediaries demand bribes from
family members who seek to contact
or visit detained family members or to get them released or even just
to obtain information on their whereabouts.
The failure of the state to change its ways is compounded by the failure of
armed non state actors that control Syrian territory
to forge a different approach to governance,
one that protects basic rights and freedoms
in the northwest of the country.
HTS and some factions of the SN continue to detain
torture and disappear civilians and those perceived as political opponents,
while at the same time political activists detained
by the SDF
in
Syria.
In the northeast, tens of thousands of women and Children remain trapped in camps
in cruel and inhumane conditions. They include Yazidi
women and Children 10 years after the
Yazidi genocide,
beyond the state
and non state
armed groups, we note the appalling failure of the global coalition against Dutch
that has been present in Syria since 2014 10 years ago.
DAESH attacks in Syria this year are reportedly on
course to double compared to the year 2023.
Alongside the stalled peace process,
efforts by the international community to bring the
conflict to an end have also failed.
Fighting has intensified along multiple front lines,
taking a heavy toll on civilians
in incidents in the northwest of the country.
At least 150 civilians,
half of their women and Children were killed and injured by government forces.
The vast majority indiscriminate ground attacks
near front line villages and towns
in de a
zoo.
There has been a resurgence of violence,
with government forces now backing a coalition of tribal fighters against the SDF.
In just one week in early August,
65 civilians were reportedly killed or injured in
attacks along the banks of the Ri River.
Fighting displaced thousands of families,
destroyed civilian prepared property and hamper humanitarian
assistance with reports of civilian infrastructure,
including water stations and schools used for military operations.
Tensions between the SDF and
fighters have intensified in northern Aleppo with
mutual shelling and cross line assaults,
and renewed reports of civilian
casualties by vehicle borne IED
attacks in July and August in central Syria, we see increasing armed attacks,
kidnapping
and use of IE,
reportedly by DAESH.
Civilians continue to be killed on a daily basis in a
senseless war that has left the country economically and politically broken,
dramatically eroding the social fabric of the country.
While people strive to maintain their dignity amid daily challenges,
they are forced to navigate predatory practises by
local security forces and factions across the country,
ranging from distortion at checkpoints to confiscation of
land and properties and kidnapping or arbitrary detention.
Living conditions are increasingly desperate
and the international community failed to fund more
than a quarter of the United Nations 2024
humanitarian response plan just to shock you, I repeat,
not more than a quarter of the US 2024 humanitarian response plan,
Northwest Syria is now home to 4.2 million people, of whom 80% IP
having fled war multiple times
by now.
Their funding shortage have already shut down 100 health facilities or
has warned that half of all health facilities
in Syria will have to fully or partially
seize operations by this December,
severely affecting mostly women and Children living in tents faced with illness,
resulting from water shortage and poor sanitation.
In the northeast,
an already severe water,
fuel and electricity crisis has been
compounded by strikes on civilian infrastructure.
Malnutrition rates have risen dramatically, including among
young Children. Overall, serious GDP has shrank by more than have since 2011,
a result of the combined effect of destruction
of infrastructure and economic networks,
forced displacement of more than half of the Syrian population,
predatory practise and rampant corruption.
While elites
seem shelter from the prolonged humanitarian
and economic crisis,
we are concerned that sanctions further deepen serious economic abyss
and aggravate already dire living conditions of the civilian population,
particularly sector
oral sanctions.
This is particularly urgent as humanitarian funding has increasingly dwindled
over the last few years and the humanitarian response plan,
as I mentioned, is severely underfunded.
I think this is an understatement. Underfunded.
The heightened regional tensions is stemming from the conflict in Palestine
have led to intensify Israeli air strikes.
Last week, a raid into Syria
targeting Iranian officials and militias across Syria,
causing civilian casualties and on at least three
occasions the Iranian affiliate groups and the US
have separate
back attacks on each other in north east Syria since the start of the Gaza War.
In recent months, you have been alerted to the dangers
to the system of international law itself.
If the member states charged with upholding it
are seen to fully failing in this obligation,
we are truly shocked that there has
been no worldwide condemnation of the simultaneous,
widespread attacks using handheld devices that have this week terrorised
the people in Lebanon and resulted in thousands of casualties,
including in Syria
excellence. I'm almost concluding
it should amaze you that Syrians across the
country still resort to protests in the streets.
Most recently, we have seen protests against the HTS
in the northwest, against the SN
in the north, against the SDF in the Northeast and against the government. It's Ava.
This protest should spur us to overcome
the failures.
I have lighted non state actors in control of territory
need to focus on why the Syrian people rose up in
2011 and began to systematically address the real and
ongoing grievance and indeed the aspirations of the people.
The human rights situation
will only get worse unless the international community
pays renewed attention to the Syria crisis.
Member states need to do more on the humanitarian front.
The Syrian people deserve to live in dignity,
exercising their fundamental rights and freedoms.
They look to this council
to help, to help them
get there.
Me?
I thank you.
Dear
Mr
P,
together with the member of
the Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria
for presenting your report,
the Secretariat. I would like to stress that is working hard
to guarantee your participation
on
the resuming of our discussion on your report on next Monday.
Now,
I now
give the floor to Syria as a concerned country.
Thank you,
Mr President. Uh,
it is well known that mandates imposed by certain
countries without the consent or consultation of the concerned country
are nothing but tools designed to implement specific agendas that
have nothing to do with protecting and promoting human rights.
Today's meeting and the mandate of the so called
of inquiry are a flagrant example of this.
Ironically,
while these countries speak about the need to rationalise the work of the Council
and while the UN is suffering from an unprecedented liquidity crisis,
the same countries are imposing on the council more and more
expansion of such mandates, interactive dialogues and politicised reports
and prefer to stop the most urgent
humanitarian programmes rather than limiting these mandates,
despite not providing any added value
and rather always produce counterproductive results.
What is the benefit of such mandates when we are faced
with a commission of inquiry whose task is not to investigate,
but establish the misleading Western narrative on the situation in Syria?
Yes, this commission has succeeded
honesty and sincerely in implementing what is requested by the Western countries.
Regrettably, though it has betrayed the principles of impartiality,
objectivity, independence and transparency,
no objective observer can ignore the serious professional flaws
in its work and reports and its total
failure to approach the real challenges facing Syria.
What is the benefit of such interactive dialogues,
which are neither dialogues nor interactive
as we know in advance that we will listen on Monday
two abhorrent canned statements from some Western countries
which contain politicisation hypocrisy and distortion of facts.
As for claims to protect human rights,
they
fall resoundingly before the test of truth and reality. For example,
in the statements of these countries,
we will not hear anything about the real danger of terrorist groups,
nor about the violations of human rights and
committed by the illegal foreign forces present on Syrian territory.
It is obvious that these countries will not condemn themselves
addressing the impacts of
MS on the humanitarian situation and their violation
of the basic rights of the Syrian people.
Of course,
it would not be surprising if these countries ignored the serious
and systematic violations committed by
the Israeli occupation forces against Israel
against Syria.
Sorry, as they provide justifications, cover and support for these violations,
and they also support the genocide against the Palestinian people.
As Syria renews its position of not recognising the mandate of the commission
and the resolutions it established and rejects its reports in their entirety,
we will continue our Cooper operation and constructive interaction
with countries that truly believe in human rights,
on an equal footing and based on dialogue and Cooper operation.
In line with the genuine mandate of the Council, we reaffirm
our commitment to continue efforts to promote and protect
human rights for all our people without discrimination.
In conclusion, Mr President,
the right path to effectively promote and protect human rights in Syria
does not require bankrupt mandates, misleading reports
or heinous manipulation of the suffering of the Syrian people. Rather,
it
primarily required supporting the government's efforts,
helping to build its capacities in accordance with its national priorities
and ending all illegal practises against Syria
and addressing the real challenges and devastating impacts that these practises
leave on
the Syrian people. I thank you.