UN officials warn of possible Syria human rights abuses

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UN officials warn of possible Syria human rights abuses

July 23, 2011 04:23:06 pm

[JURIST] Two UN rights officials on Friday expressed concern [press release, PDF] over reports of violence used by Syrian authorities against the country’s own people. Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide Francis Deng [official profile, PDF] and Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect Edward Luck [academic profile] stated that reports of Syrian forces killing or arbitrarily arresting peaceful protesters indicate potentially grievous violations of international human rights laws, and urged officials to adhere to the government’s 2005 pledge to protect its citizens. They also called on Syria to grant UN officials access in order to conduct humanitarian and investigatory missions, saying:

Based on available information, the Special Advisers consider that the scale and gravity of the violations indicate a serious possibility that crimes against humanity may have been committed and continue to be committed in Syria. They underline the need for an independent, thorough, and objective investigation of the events in the country. They call on the Government of Syria, as the Secretary-General has done, to allow humanitarian access to affect areas and to facilitate the visit of the Human Rights Council-mandated fact finding mission so that it can complete its work. Without these steps, it will be very difficult to defuse existing tensions and to prevent the escalation of violence.

The statement comes as violence in the country continues, and some allege that official misconduct has intensified [AFP report] in the days immediately prior to Ramadan beginning on August 1.

There has been a major struggle to put an end to Syrian violence since the protests began earlier this year. Earlier this month, Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] released a report [text, PDF; JURIST report] documenting alleged crimes against humanity during an operation to suppress demonstrations, including killings, mass arrests, arbitrary detentions and torture. In June, Syrian and international human rights groups urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] to investigate the hundreds of civilian deaths during protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad [Al Jazeera profile]. The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) [official website], in an emergency special session in April, publicly condemned [JURIST report] the violence used by Syrian authorities against peaceful demonstrators and called for a full investigation. Days earlier, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official profile] called for Syria to immediately halt the killings [JURIST report] and violence against civilian protesters. Over one thousand people have been killed and 10,000 displaced since protests erupted in February.

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail

On April 16, 1963, an incarcerated Martin Luther King, Jr. (arrested for demonstrating in defiance of a court order) wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama.

Part of the letter read: We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. Read the full text of the Letter.