Press release
Syrian Opposition Coalition
Department of Media and Communications
April 13, 2021
Evidence is accumulating about the Assad regime’s responsibility for crimes against humanity and using chemical weapons as many countries reaffirm their insistence on punishing those responsible for these crimes. However, some countries surprisingly chose to side with the criminal and descend into the quagmire of criminality and blood in which the regime is drowning along with its allies.
The recent decision by the Mauritania authorities to appoint an ambassador to the murderous Assad regime represents an unjustified submission to the blackmail by parties seeking to transform the region into an authoritarian, criminal network based on bullying and conspiracies. These parties are also seeking to create chaos and impose a reality that is devoid of principles, ideals and morals as well as consolidate the principle of impunity for criminals.
The Syrian people reject this reprehensible step as they denounce all calls to rehabilitate the Assad regime as amounting to partnership in criminality. These calls are also suspicious and short-sighted as they will only plunge the region into more murder, terror and bombings – Assad’s modus operandi.
We remind the parties that call for rehabilitating the Assad regime of its track record of massacres, crimes of mass forced displacement, torture and the use of sarin to suffocate children, women and the elderly. We also call on them to abide by the positions of the Arab League and the Arab peoples that refuse to descend into the quagmire of blood that the regime is shedding.
It is also worth reminding those who are extending their hands to the Assad regime of 55,000 pictures of 11,000 detainees who were tortured to death at the hands of the Assad regime. These steps raise serious questions about their motives and the extent of extortion and corruption surrounding them.
We are certain that the fate of this regrettable step will not be different from the fate of the other miserable attempts to rehabilitate the regime. Whoever insists on extending his hand to the criminals will drown with them in the same quagmire.
Just as Syria is not the Assad regime, the criminal cannot represent the victim. The Syrian people are looking forward to the appropriate conditions for the return of their country to the Arab League and removing the reasons that prevent this, most notably the Assad regime. The efforts aimed at rehabilitating the criminal and circumventing political solution and UN resolutions are not but a new crime against the Syrian people, an insult to their sacrifices, and a mockery of their rights and aspirations.
We call on the world to enforce UN resolutions, hold criminals and their allies accountable, and ensure an end to impunity. We expect from the Arab states and brotherly peoples firmer positions so as to ensure increased pressure on the regime and work towards the transition of Syria to a new civil political system in accordance with the Geneva Communique of 2012 and UN Security Council Resolution 2254.
