Istanbul: SNHR gave an extensive lecture on Monday 22 August on the importance of adhering to the rules of the international humanitarian law and the international human rights law for armed opposition factions. The lecture began with outlining the most significant rules of the customary international law which was followed by highlighting some examples of violations by armed opposition factions. Finally, Mr. Fadel Abdul Ghany talked about the consequences of failing to abide by the international law before he opened the floor for a lengthy and extensive session of discussion and questions that lasted for over 90 minutes.
Representatives from most of the armed opposition factions’ political offices attended the presentation which was sponsored by the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue. It should be noted that we have conducted a previous presentation as part of a series of workshops in which the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue assessed the commitment to the international law as SNHR made a contribution to these workshops through its documentation and observation process. These kind of activities are immensely valuable and they should be conducted on a more frequent basis in order to build upon it to assert the commitments of the armed opposition factions who responded positively, attended, and participated in the discussion. We hope to see an impact in reality in the near future.