Human Rights Council concludes Special session on Syrian Arab Republic

Human Rights Council
ROUNDUP

2 May 2011

Adopts Resolution Urging Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights to Dispatch a
Mission to Syria to Investigate All Alleged Violations of International Human Rights Law

The Human Rights Council concluded on 29 April its Special Session on the situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic after adopting a resolution in which it requested the Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights to urgently dispatch a mission to Syria to investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law, with a view to avoiding impunity and ensuring full accountability.

The resolution, adopted with 26 votes in favour, 9 votes against and 7 abstentions, called on the Government of Syria to, among other things, put an end to all human rights violations, protect its population, fully respect all human rights and fundamental freedoms, allow access to the internet and telecommunications networks, and lift censorship on reporting. The resolution also urged the Government to release all prisoners of conscience and arbitrarily detained persons, refrain from reprisals against people who participated in peaceful demonstrations, launch a credible and impartial investigation into human rights violations and prosecute those responsible for attacks on peaceful protesters, and to enlarge the scope of political participation aimed at ensuring civil liberties and enhancing social justice.

The passage of the resolution came after a day of discussion during the Special Session, the Council’s sixteenth and the third Special Session to be held since December 2010. The previous two sessions were held on the situation of human rights in Côte d’Ivoire and Libya respectively.

In opening remarks, Kyung-Wha Kang, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that the recent events in Syria warranted the Council’s urgent attention. Information gathered since mid-March painted a disturbing picture: the widespread use of live fire against protestors; the arrest, detention and disappearance of demonstrators, human rights defenders, and journalists; the torture and ill-treatment of detainees; the sharp repression of press freedoms and other means of communication; and attacks against medical personnel, facilities and patients. The preponderance of information that had emerged from Syria depicted a widespread, persistent and gross disregard for human rights by the Syrian military and security forces. Syrian and international human rights organizations documented more than 450 killings and around four times that number of injuries.

The Council was also addressed in a videotaped message on behalf of several Special Procedures by Olivier de Schutter, Special Rapporteur on the right to food. Mr. de Schutter said that the Special Rapporteurs had received reports that serious human rights violations were being committed in Syria and that the Government security forces and the army had used disproportionate and indiscriminate force. The Special Rapporteurs had stressed that this use of force was in clear violation of international law and they called upon the Government of Syria to immediately stop the use of deadly force and to protect its own people. The Special Rapporteurs also called upon the Government to respect its human rights obligations, in particular with regard to the non-derogable rights to life and to freedom from torture and ill-treatment.

The delegation of Syria took the floor as a concerned country and said it was astonished at the convening of the Special Session and the use of artificial motives, including the pretext of humanitarian intervention, to take the world back to the era of colonization. The States that had convened this Special Session should respect dialogue to guarantee human rights and not intervene in internal affairs to overthrow a government. For the past six weeks there were demonstrations for political reform and the Syrian President had issued directives to the public order bodies not to use force or violence against the demonstrators. The public order bodies had maximized the use of self restraint and issued the necessary laws, including the abolishment of the state of emergency, which was still in effect in Israel since 1948. Speaking before the vote, Syria said that the resolution was an unbalanced text.

The next regular session of the Human Rights Council will be from 30 May to 17 June 2011.

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For use of the information media; not an official record