UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al
Hussein addresses the Special Session of the UN Human Rights Council on the
deterioration of the situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic, and
the recent situation in Aleppo
21 October 2016
Distinguished Vice-Presidents of the Council,
Distinguished Chair of the International Commission of
Inquiry,
Excellencies,
Once again, this Council has been called to discuss the
disgraceful human rights crisis in Syria. The violations and abuses suffered by
people across the country, including the siege and bombardment of eastern
Aleppo, are not simply tragedies; they also constitute crimes of historic
proportions.
Well over 300,000 Syrians have been killed, and countless
others wounded and traumatised in the course of this civil war – now also a
proxy conflict, fuelled by cynical regional and international interests. Tens
of thousands of people have been abducted, summarily executed or arbitrarily
detained and tortured. Broken, uprooted and displaced families now number well
over half the Syrian population. Hospitals, schools, marketplaces, water
facilities and neighbourhood bakeries have been deliberately and repeatedly
attacked. Millions are routinely denied life-saving aid. And the attack last month
on a humanitarian aid convoy took these pervasive violations of international
law to a new low of barbarity.
The ancient city of Aleppo, a place of millennial
civility and beauty, is today a slaughterhouse – a gruesome locus of pain and
fear, where the lifeless bodies of small children are trapped under streets of
rubble and pregnant women deliberately bombed. As we speak, hundreds of
thousands of people are trapped in 17 other besieged locations, and face
life-threatening shortages of food, medicine, and basic supplies. In Deir
ez-Zour, Hama, Rural Damascus and many other locations, civilians are suffering
acutely in the context of ongoing fighting.
The collective failure of the international community to
protect civilians and halt this bloodshed should haunt every one of us. Not
only does it violate every norm of human rights, to our dishonour; its costs
will be borne by our children, and future generations. Forces unleashed by the Syrian conflict have
metastasised extremism across the region and beyond. Terrorist attacks linked
to the crisis have struck around the world.
My staff and the staff of the Commission have documented
violations of international humanitarian law by all parties in Aleppo. Armed
opposition groups continue to fire mortars and other projectiles into civilian
neighbourhoods of western Aleppo, but indiscriminate airstrikes across the
eastern part of the city by Government forces and their allies are responsible
for the overwhelming majority of civilian casualties.
These violations constitute war crimes. And if knowingly
committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against
civilians, they constitute crimes against humanity.
Responsibility for halting the Syrian crisis rests
primarily with the Security Council, but not exclusively, so the General
Assembly may also have a role. In the course of today’s deliberations, I urge
members of the Human Rights Council to cast aside political disagreements and
focus exclusively on the women, men and children whose suffering cries out for
our help. No hypothetical advantage in global gamesmanship could possibly
outweigh this pain and horror. All of us owe it to the people of Aleppo to find
a way to achieve consensus on principled action. I urge you to call on the
Security Council to set aside rivalries and act as one, in accordance with
international security and peace. Influence must be used to advance a political
solution to the conflict. Flows of arms and equipment to the parties to the
conflict must cease. And the situation should be urgently referred to the
International Criminal Court. Every party to this conflict must know that they
will be held accountable for the international crimes they commit – all,
without selective protection or discrimination.
In Aleppo, there must be an immediate, prolonged and
all-encompassing ceasefire to enable the passage of humanitarian relief to all
in need – impartially and unconditionally. All parties must provide assistance
and free passage for all civilians wishing to flee, without any form of
reprisal – including passage across international borders. It should also be
clear that they retain the right to return to their city – and that civilians
who choose to remain in Aleppo must also be protected, under international humanitarian
law.
Lastly, the tireless work of the Commission of Inquiry,
which honours this Council, demands support from all of us. Both my staff and
the Commission require access to witnesses, including refugees, to perform our
mandates. I urge you to refrain from making this work a pawn of political
rancour.
Excellencies, in this, the defining human rights crisis
of our era, let us speak with one voice, for human life and human rights.
ENDS
To watch the live webcast of the special session, visit:http://webtv.un.org/
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