Some of the Arab States Working to Restore Relations With the Syrian Regime Have Voted Against the Regime on all UN General Assembly Resolutions
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Press release: (Download the full report below)
The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) today released a report entitled, ‘Only Nine Countries Out of 193 Have Voted in Favor of the Syrian Regime on UN General Assembly Resolutions Since March 2011’, in which it notes that some of the Arab states working to restore relations with the Syrian regime have voted against the regime on all UN General Assembly resolutions.
The 14-page report outlines how the UN General Assembly (UNGA) has discussed the human rights situation in Syria, in many of its sessions. To that end, the UNGA has adopted 17 resolutions on Syria since the beginning of the popular uprising, most of which condemned the human rights violations by the Syrian regime, and which describe some of these as crimes against humanity. In other words, all these resolutions have sided with the rights of the Syrian people.
The report categorizes the UNGA resolutions into three groups. First, the repot sheds light on 12 resolutions adopted by the UNGA on the human rights situation in Syria, in which the UNGA condemned the grave and systematic human rights violations committed by the Syrian regime, and described some of these as crimes against humanity such as arbitrary execution and the excessive use of force against civilians, as well as persecution, arrests, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture, ill treatment of detainees including children, and attacking vital civilian facilities such as hospitals, schools, places of worship, and others. These resolutions also condemned forced displacement practices in Syria and the demographic outcomes of these, and condemned the violations by all parties to the conflict. In all of its resolutions, the UNGA has called on the Syrian regime to immediately put an end to all human rights violations, secure the protection of the country’s residents, and uphold its obligations under international human rights law. The UNGA resolutions also called on all parties to the conflict to end all violence in Syria and immediately release all arbitrarily arrested detainees.
Second, the report continues, the UNGA adopted four resolutions on the situation in Syria, without referring it to any of its six Main Committees. The UNGA, through those four resolutions, condemned the widespread and systematic violations of human rights and basic freedoms by the Syrian regime, as well as the other parties to the conflict, through the use of force against civilians, arbitrary execution, the killing and persecution of protestors, human rights defenders, and journalists, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture, and ill treatment of individuals, including children. In those resolutions, the UNGA also called on the Syrian regime to immediately release all arbitrarily detained individuals, as well as underlining the importance of ensuring accountability and of putting an end to impunity for all individuals responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in Syria, including violations that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, while also stressing that all such individuals must be held accountable.
Third, the report adds, the UNGA adopted resolution 71/248 on December 21, 2016, without any referral to any of the UNGA’s six Main Committees. In accordance with this resolution, the UNGA founded the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) to assist in the investigation and prosecution of persons responsible for the most serious crimes under international law committed in the Syrian Arab Republic since March 2011, following the Security Council’s failure to refer the case in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The resolution establishing the IIIM received the support of 105 states, while 52 states abstained from voting. The remaining 15 states that voted against this resolution are the Syrian regime, Russia, China, Iran, Algeria, Belarus, Cuba, Venezuela, Burundi, Bolivia, North Korea, South Sudan, Zimbabwe, Kyrgyzstan, and Nicaragua.
Fadel Abdul Ghany, Executive Director of SNHR, says:
“The overwhelming majority of the world’s states actually care about their legal and ethical image. That is why, as we’ve noted, many of those states, even non-democratic ones, have voted against the Syrian regime. This is because the regime has descended to the level of committing crimes against humanity, and it has become impossible for them to provide cover for its crimes, especially since it has used chemical weapons and killed tens of thousands of Syrian citizens under torture. Only nine countries out of 193 have consistently voted in favor of the Syrian regime at the UNGA.”
As the report reveals, only nine states have opposed all UNGA resolutions on Syria since March 2011. In other words, these nine states have consistently voted in favor of the Syrian regime for the past 12 years, with all these states ruled by similarly oppressive dictatorships. These states are: Russia, Iran, China, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Nicaragua. The report adds that eight states have voted in support of the Syrian regime on a number of UNGA resolutions, but abstained from voting on other resolutions, yet they never voted in favor of any of the UNGA resolutions on Syria since March 2011. As such, the report concludes that the overall number of states that voted in favor of the UNGA resolutions on Syria since March 2011 is vastly greater than the number of the dictatorial states that voted in support of the Syrian regime.
The report shows that the overwhelming majority of the world’s states refuse to support crimes against humanity and war crimes in Syria. Had the decision to protect civilians been left to the UNGA or the HRC, it notes, violations in Syria would have been stopped in the summer of 2011; instead, however, the UN Security Council consolidated most of the executive powers in its hands, while miserably and totally failing to protect civilians in Syria for 12 years and counting.
The report calls on the UNGA to issue a resolution to suspend the membership of the Syrian regime from all UN organs and organizations considering the fact the regime has committed crimes against humanity against the Syrian people and used weapons of mass destruction.
The report also calls on all the world’s states to stand in solidarity with just causes, and vote in support of UNGA resolutions condemning those states that grossly violate basic human rights, such as the Syrian regime, and respect the rights of the victims who have been killed and displaced by the Syrian regime, especially women, children, and forcibly disappeared persons, and to end support for the Syrian regime, in addition to making several other recommendations.