Syria accused of organized attacks

14/06/2012| IslamWeb

Syria is committing crimes against humanity as part of state policy to exact revenge against communities suspected of supporting the revolution, Amnesty International has said in a report.

The London-based rights group called for an international response on Wednesday after claiming it had fresh evidence that victims, including children, had been dragged from their homes and shot dead by soldiers, who in some cases then set the remains on fire.

"This disturbing new evidence of an organized pattern of grave abuses highlights the pressing need for decisive international action," said Amnesty's Donatella Rovera on release of the 70-page report entitled "Deadly Reprisals".

The group interviewed people in 23 towns and villages across Syria and concluded that government forces and militias were guilty of "grave human rights violations and serious violations of international humanitarian law amounting to crimes against humanity and war crimes".

Reporting on the revolt which broke out in March last year, Amnesty described how soldiers and shabiha militias burned down homes and properties and fired indiscriminately into residential areas, killing and injuring civilian bystanders.

The report also accused the regime of routinely torturing those who were arrested, including the sick and elderly.

In the report, Amnesty called on the United Nations Security Council to refer the case to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and to impose an arms embargo on Syria.

French proposal

Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said he will call on the UN Security Council to make United Nations envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan for Syria mandatory.

France would propose that Annan's six-point plan be enforced under the UN's Chapter Seven provision, he said on Wednesday, describing the conflict in Syria as a "civil war".

Fabius said he hoped Russia would agree to using Chapter Seven, a measures which can authorize the use of force, and he said that a no-fly zone was another option under discussion.

"We propose making the implementation of the Annan plan compulsory," he told a news conference. "We need to pass to the next speed at the Security Council and place the Annan plan under Chapter Seven - that is to say make it compulsory under pain of very heavy sanctions."

France would propose toughening sanctions on Syria at the next meeting of EU foreign ministers, Fabius said.

He said the international community would prepare a list of second-ranking military officials who would be pursued by international justice, alongside President Bashar al-Assad and his immediate entourage.

"They must understand that the only future is in resisting oppression. The time for taking a decision has arrived. They have to jump ship," Fabius said.

Earlier on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference during a brief visit to Iran that Moscow was supplying "anti-air defense systems" to Damascus in a deal that "in no way violates international laws".

On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton renewed her call on Russia to end arms deliveries to Syria, saying that the violence-torn nation was "spiraling toward civil war".

Clinton said she supported cooperation with Russia but stood firm on her call for an end to arms deliveries, a day after she charged that Moscow was sending "attack helicopters" to Syria that could "escalate the conflict".

Asked in Tehran about the helicopter allegation, Lavrov said only that Moscow was giving Damascus "conventional weapons" related to air defense and asserted that the deal complied with international law.
Gennady Gatilov, Russia's deputy foreign minister, told reporters last month that Moscow believed "it would be wrong to leave the Syrian government without the means for self-defense".

Ali Akbar Salehi, the Iranian foreign minister, said at the same news conference with Lavrov that Tehran and Moscow were "very close" on the Syria issue.

PHOTO CAPTION

Demonstrators hold posters as they protest against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Kafranbel, near Idlib June 12, 2012.

Al-Jazeera