By Carolyn Abdenour
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
DAMASCUS, Syria – On Thursday, 23 February, the United Nations (“U.N.”) panel announced it delivered a sealed list naming Syrian officials, including President Bashar Assad, whose actions may merit investigation by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights to Geneva. The U.N.-appointed Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria found the country “manifestly failed” to protect its citizens.
The U.N. panel issued a report documenting reliable evidence exists to hold commanding officers and high-level government officials responsible for ordering security forces to commit crimes against humanity and gross human rights violations. Since protests began in March 2011, security forces have killed approximately 8,000 people. The U.N. Human Rights Council will meet in Geneva next week to review the panel’s report.
Brazilian professor Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, leader of this panel of experts, added the list includes armed opposition groups that committed gross abuses “not comparable in scale and organization with those carried out by the state.”
The U.N. panel relied on information from human rights activists and Syrian army defectors to compose the list because Syria denied the U.N. panel’s request to enter the country. The government believed the panel exceeded the UN mandate and ignored official information.
The panel’s report asserts the ruling Baath Party’s National Security Bureau initiated the systematic arrest or killing of citizens by translating government policies into military operations. The report also notes the country’s intelligence and security agencies “were at the heart of almost all operations.” Furthermore, it describes how Shabbiha, informal pro-government militias, received funding and arms from businessmen.
Moreover, the report highlights the Syrian army and government ordered security forces to shell residential communities, kill unarmed women and children, and torture wounded protesters receiving hospital care.
The international community has sought avenues to support Syria’s citizens. U.N. Secretary General recently expressed his desire for his humanitarian chief to negotiate access to Homs in Syria. The U.N.’s top human rights official previously asked the International Criminal Court to review the situation in Syria. This week the International Committee of the Red Cross requested a cease-fire in the worst affected areas to aid trapped and wounded victims.
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague noted the European Union could tighten its sanctions against Syria further. “It is a deeply frustrating situation that people have been dying in [the] thousands…that the Assad regime has continued to act seemingly with impunity – but I think we can agree to a wider set of measures across a large group of nations,” he said.
For further information, please see:
Al Jazeera – UN Report Says Syria Committing War Crimes – 23 Feb 2012
BBC – UN Panel Draws Up Syria Crimes Against Humanity List – 23 Feb 2012
Haaretz – Assad, Top Syria Officials Could Face Crimes Against Humanity Charges, UN Report Says – 23 Feb 2012
San Francisco Chronicle – UN Panel Draws Up List of Syria Leaders To Probe – 23 Feb 2012
