OHCHR Inquiry on Syria press conference 07 July 2020

Good.

So welcome to all of us, to all of you joining us on on this virtual press conference.

Unfortunately, the the commissioners on Syria could not be with us here today.

Normally they would be sitting behind me in the assembly hall here in Geneva.

The commissioners, Paolo Pinera, Karen Abu Zayd and Hani Magali join us from Sao Paulo, Chicago and New York respectively.

This the launch, this is the the press conference to launch their their report on a special investigation they've conducted into events in Idlib occurring between 1N and one June.

This, I should remind you, this resolution, rather this investigation was mandated by the Human Rights Council through its resolution adopted on 23 June, so just a short while ago.

In fact, the report is scheduled to be presented to the Human Rights Council on 14 July.

So that's one week from today.

And I will now maybe ask our colleagues to run the opening remarks of Mr Pinero, and then we'll turn to you for your questions.

So thank you.

Good morning.

Thank you for joining us today for the launch of our special report on Idlib mandated by the Human Rights Council.

I encourage you to read it carefully.

This is a chronicle of deaths foretoed.

The Commission has said time and again that Idlib is a ticking time bomb, and this report lays out what human suffering issues after a partial detonation.

On one side there is a border wall, while on the other there is a government that has failed its population in more ways than can be fatum the people of Italy, but trapped, is carried by fighting and abuses by all sides over the course of the conflict and forced to live in terror.

Now the governorate is either largely laying in the populated ruins or, conversely, overcrowded, under service and overbounded.

More than one million people have been displaced from different parts of Idlib over this.

Fleeing a campaign of bombardment and terror that may amount to crimes against humanity.

All sides likely committed war crimes.

Children were sheltered at school.

Parents were sheltered at the market.

Patients were sheltered at the hospital.

Entire families were bombarded even while fleeing these attacks.

Terrorists and other groups launched indiscriminate attacks on civilians in government controlled areas.

They arbitrarily detained tortured, executed civilians expressing dissenting opinions, including journalists.

They oppressed women.

The civilian population is now cremated into an ever shrinking space needling largely under the control of terrorist groups and armed groups with ever increasing needs.

During the winter months, children without shelter froze to death and the international response was to play a game of chicken with humanitarian aid.

Border crossing access.

Despite the risks involved, some people are returning to their homes and places of prior displacement because the conditions in overcrowded camps are just their dire and compounded by the looming ****** of COVID-19.

The very least the Security Council can do now is to renew and strengthen the cross-border and cross line aid operations.

Pandemics know no borders, nor should humanitarian aid.

The global pandemic helped the issue.

A pause in fighting now that the initial shock of the pandemic fades.

So there's hope that the ceasefire would become permanent.

True concrete actions must now be taken to end the conflict, seize the continuation of so much suffering and began the path to a more rights respecting Syria for its people.

While we welcome last week's resolution by the Security Council calling 90 day pause in fighting, the Commission urges the parties to the conflict to heed the Secretary General's dispersal invoice, call for a lasting ceasefire and the immediate return to negotiations to end this conflict.

Any lasting peace requires justice for the victims as defined by and for serious, and an end to the rampant impunity.

To conclude, this report sets out the details of emblematic attacks and human rights relations and abuses, but there is no explanation to be found as to why such a predictable and foreseeable amount of suffering has been permitted to proceed to its terrible conclusions without a redoubling of principal efforts to end this conflict by all involved.

I fear that we will return here time and again to inform you of what is painfully apparent in the present report, that's once again that the Syrian government, the other parties to the conflict and the international community have failed the Syrian people yet again, and that this bloodshed continues to go and checked it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for those remarks, Paolo and the Commissioners.

I should of course note that with the start of this press conference, the embargo on the report is lifted.

The report along with a press release in English and Arabic infographics, short video clip, all available on the Commission's website.

So I see we have a question from Laurent Ciero.

So if we can unmute Laurent, please.

Thank you.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

OK, very good.

Go ahead, Laurent.

Thank you very much.

Rosa Rosa News Agency.

Thank you for for this briefing.

You touched on the context of COVID in the last month in the in the region.

Have you observed violations related directly to COVID, for instance, deliberate deprivation of, of test of or of care for for civilians and then as this crisis as the also effects on the way you could talk remotely with some witnesses during this this recent months and this crisis?

Thank you.

Thank you, Laurent, if we can unmute Hani for our response.

Hani, there you go.

Hi.

You can hear me.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Laura.

What we've seen thankfully so far, although data is very difficult to obtain for the Idlib region, so far we haven't seen cases of of COVID-19.

We've seen it in other parts of Syria and we'll report on that in the report in September.

We've seen the Syrian government take some actions to restrict movements around the country and travel in and out of the country as other countries have done.

But specific actions that maybe looked at as violations of rights, I think we will report probably on that in in September.

And it's certainly become much much more difficult to be in contact with people and and get information.

The team has done a remarkable effort to produce this report under these conditions.

Thank you, honey.

We have a question now from Moussa.

Moussa, please, if we can unmute him.

Moussa.

We we we wait the question a concern only violacion ID but.

Sure.

La La la muyen of Erfas Akovit Disner Francieri, if Mr Hani Jamali will response, can I, can I ask him in Arabic?

Not for this press conference, we can.

We can arrange that afterwards.

Unfortunately only English and French.

But if maybe we can just start with those.

Hani, please go ahead.

OK, go ahead.

Wait, go ahead.

Sorry, Musa, did you?

Yes.

Is that the last bit of your question?

Yes.

Can I speak?

No, no, no.

Sorry.

Not for this press conference.

Sorry.

We have to stick to the UN rules, English and French only.

OK, Very good.

So, Hani, if you can respond, please.

Thank you.

OK.

As I understood it, because my French is a bit weak, but on the humanitarian access, humanitarian aid, what we've seen are obviously the problems everyone has spoken about in the past about the Syrian government restricting aid to to this particular region, cross line aid coming through Damascus and then crossing to the region.

And of course, we're seeing that the Security Council that the ongoing debate now about access to the region through the true border crossings in in Turkey, the Bab and Salaam and the Baba Hawa.

We are very concerned and we hope that the resolution that's coming next week will will not only maintain those crossings, but but open them up.

Now we've also seen Tahira Sham prevent and divert aid coming into the region and the humanitarian actors have complained about this and raised it with Dahir Shaman will report on it in the report.

The second question I think was was on the sanctions, yeah, and the impact on on civilians and and here we're very concerned obviously sanction.

You know, Syria's economy is devastated.

The country has been in a nine year conflict.

People are suffering and sanctions will obviously add to this.

We recognise that the sanctions that are being imposed there are major efforts to ensure that they don't have the impact on civilians that we all fear.

But we are concerned that no matter how good the efforts are, that the civilians will be suffering.

And we, as well as the Secretary General and the **** Commissioner for Human Rights, have said we urge those imposing sanctions to take all the steps necessary to ensure there's no impact on civilians.

If there were other ways to convince the the government in Syria to improve its records, that would be better.

But let's see.

Thank you, Hani, We have a question from Lisa of Voice of America.

Lisa, if we can, there you go.

Not yet.

Yeah, Yes, yes.

It takes me a moment to unmute myself, but now I can speak.

Thank you.

Nice to see you all, if only virtually.

Sorry about that at first.

Very quickly, will you be sending Sergio Paolo's opening remarks to us?

Thank you.

Yes, I'll send.

In fact, they are in the press release, embedded in the press release, but we'll resend that to all of you just in case you didn't receive that.

Thank you.

OK.

As As for my questions there, there's still about a million this place.

I was wondering if you have any sort of a figure in terms of how many civilians have been killed since this onslaught began last last year?

And do you think that Syria and Russia and the terrorist groups that you mentioned are determined to keep fighting until there is a winner?

And is there, is it possible to have a winner in this in this tragedy?

And and then again, if I may says you you talk about the failure of the community to respond to this terrible tragedy.

Do you see any inkling that this might change or do you see this as a kind of ongoing tragedy?

OK, Thank you, Lisa.

Hanny, if we can unmute Hanny again.

OK, go ahead.

Yes, all, all very good and very difficult questions to answer because it's all predictions into the future.

We don't yet have a figure of the numbers of people killed.

If we do, I'll send it to you.

But, but we do have the numbers in terms of the people displaced, you know, from, I think from December to March, we had 1,000,000 people basically displaced.

We, we think at the moment there's about one and a half million people at the border, at the Turkish border stuck in, in very difficult circumstances.

And, and really what's quite remarkable is that people fled bombardment when they fled their, their houses were then taken over and looted, whether by the by the Syrian Army, the, the national army when they moved in or by HTS and other armed groups.

And yet with despite all of this, because there's been a lull in the shelling and the fighting, some people have felt that they should go back and try and reclaim their property and take those risks, which is an indication of how bad the situation is in in the camps and the open spaces at the border.

And I think that's where we feel everybody is failing.

The Syrian, the Syrian people.

You have a population stuck at the border.

The Security Council is debating whether or not to allow aid to come across an international border to these people.

They're not allowed to cross the border and because the situation is so bad, they're willing to risk going back into a conflict zone rather than remain at the border.

And we've reported in the past the conditions have been so bad.

People have died, children have died because they're sleeping out in the open, etcetera.

Thank you.

Thank you, honey.

OK, Stephanie of Reuters, we can unmute.

Stephanie, please.

Very good.

Stephanie, go ahead.

Yes, please.

Thank you.

Thank you for the report.

I just wondered focusing a little bit on the on the issue of the air strikes and accountability for Syrian and Russian air strikes and other crimes committed on the HTS side, Are you not getting rather discouraged at the lack of prosecutions?

There's been very few, a few nationally in places like Germany.

But do you have any indication that there will be, you know, sort of meaningful International Criminal justice anytime soon?

And your, your frankly, your report seemed a little bit shorter on that aspect than in previous times over the last nine years.

Thank you.

Thank you, Stephanie and Hannah.

Yes, go ahead.

Yes, I mean to just to begin with the last part of the report, you know, this was a a special report on the Idlib situation that was requested of us by as an update by the by the Human Rights Council.

And and so it's a little bit different from our regular mandate boards.

We still will have one in, in September and you will see again we will focus more fully on accountability and also other issues around the country.

It's again, it's difficult to predict what's going to come next, but we are encouraged by the fact that we're seeing more and more cases now being adjudicated outside Syria.

You, you know, you mentioned Germany and, and other cases.

And for us, that's a sign that the international community is taking this seriously, that jurisdictions, legal jurisdictions around the world are beginning to respond to the calls of the Syrian people to hold those perpetrators responsible.

And those messages, we hope, not only bring justice to the victims and survivors, but also signal to people inside Syria that this behaviour will not be acceptable.

You know, whether that will deter people from committing further violations, that's part of what we hope will happen.

But it's also an indication that, you know, cases are being documented.

When the conflicts, you know, which is a point that where it ceases or comes to an end or there's a settlement, I think we will see much more action in terms of accountability.

You know, as people have said in the past, this is probably one of the best documented conflicts ever and people are very aware to document the violations so that the perpetrators will be brought to account.

Thank you.

Thank you, honey.

So we have two questions.

Musa, did you have a follow up to your previous questions between unmute to Musa, please?

Yes, yes, I have.

I'm sorry.

I I didn't receive the report on time and I want to ask, I want to repeat my question in French in a few minutes.

Mr Majali, do you accuse Europe, accuse the Russian forces and Syrian forces of committing all crimes or crimes against humanity, Where and when, if it's true?

Thanks.

Thank you, Musa and Tehane.

Thank you.

Yes, we're yes.

When you when you see the report, we've actually investigated 52 counts of violations, 17 attacks on hospitals, 14 attacks on schools, 9 on marketplaces and and twelve others on residential buildings and other and other places.

And within that we we found that war crimes were were committed, were likely to have been committed by both the Syrian Air Force and by the Russian Air Force.

We document 2 incidents in the report where we think it it was Russian aeroplanes that that conducted those attacks and we explain why we think it was the Russians rather than than the Syrians.

We also have the other types of war crimes listed in the report, both by pro government forces and by the armed groups and terrorist organisations like the HDS, including the deliberate attacks on on protected objects like schools, hospitals, marketplaces, etcetera, launching indiscriminate attacks on on civilian population resulting in deaths and injuries.

We've come to the conclusion that the attacks by the pro government forces were so this systematic and and designed to force the population to move and the forcible transfer of populations is a is a crime against humanity.

So we think that again may have happened and both by pro government forces and by armed groups and terrorist organisations, we've seen pillaging and looting happening, which again are war crimes.

Thank you, thank you, Harry, Jeremy, if we could just go ahead.

Thanks.

Just one quick question.

Are you still asking access to the ground to the Syrian government or have you just given up asking?

Just a quick one.

And another one is that I think your former colleague, Carla Del Ponce resigned nearly three years ago now, saying that she, the Commission never managed to get substantial achievements.

I was wondering, have you also considered at some point resigning?

OK, thank you.

OK, the first question was on, sorry, I forgot the first question access.

Yes, the first question we, we always, we keep every time we're about to write a report, we send a note for about to the, to the Syrian authorities seeking access and also asking questions and asking them for any information they can provide, etcetera, as we do with the Member States and others.

And, and that will continue in terms of how the Commission is faring.

The Commission was appointed by the Human Rights Council to document the violations and to identify the perpetrators, violations of international humanitarian human rights law.

And, and we will continue to do that as long as the the Human Rights Council, you know, wants us to do that.

And it's not a question of, of us resigning as much as the work needs to be done.

And we are beginning to see the, you know, some results in terms of, as I was saying earlier, the the efforts through universal jurisdiction and national jurisdictions to bring perpetrators to justice in in many of those instances, they're relying on information the Commission has has investigated and obtained and we've passed those on to those relevant jurisdictions.

I think the push we've been making on the question of releases and of detainees and on the question of the missing, we're beginning to see those issues being taken up at the highest levels at the Security Council by the Special Envoy, Gary Pederson.

They're coming into the peace negotiations, whether in Astana or, or or now in Geneva.

We will continue to push on all those types of issues because we put the the Syrian survivors and victims at the centre of the work that we're doing.

And as long as I think they feel that we can help push their issues, bring them to world attention, we will continue to do that.

Thank you.

Thank you, honey and to you colleagues for asking the questions.

If there are no further questions, I see no other hands raised.

If I could ask our colleagues to maybe turn to Karen.

Karen, if you could hear us, Karen Abu Zayed, one of the commissioners who would like to deliver just some wrap up remarks.

Karen, please, you're unmuted.

If you could maybe put your camera or go ahead.

Yep.

Go ahead, Karen, please.

OK, Yes, thank you very much and thank all the journalists for their questions, which we appreciate, and for your continued work as journalists to shed light on the suffering of the civilian population in Syria, specifically for the people in Idlib and its environs.

I would like to_the magnitude of what has happened over the past year in Syria.

1,000,000 people, 80% of those women and children, were forced to flee their lives from reckless bombardment, displaced into displacement under appalling living conditions.

Most of those who fled are still trying to survive in cramped tents and camps adjacent to the Turkish border wall that they cannot cross, waiting for the worst but hoping for the best.

In any other place or time, their stories and their needs would not have to be fighting for airtime or adequate attention.

In response from the international community, we, as the Commission of inquiry, urge the parties to the conflict and the members of the Security Council to put aside politics and take all possible measures to alleviate the suffering, including by extending and expanding the aid operations authorised by the Security Council, most recently by Resolution 2504.

I thank you.

Thank you, Karen, and of course to you, Paolo and Hani for joining us virtually.

The Commissioners will be presenting the report here in the Assembly Hall in Geneva next week, a week from today, the 14th of July.

This will be a virtual as has been this press conference.

So again, big thanks to all of you for joining us here online and have a good day.

Thank you.