Member of the Syrian Coalition Dima Moussa has issued an appeal to all women across the world to participate in the campaigns and sit-ins being held across the world to spotlight the suffering Syrian women are enduring as a result of the criminal practices of the Assad regime against them.
“I salute all women across the world, especially Syrian women, on the occasion of International Women’s Day,” Moussa said. She added: ‘We want to convey our voices to the whole world to expose the suffering being inflicted on Syrian women by the Assad regime and put an end to the hell they are living in.”
Moussa made her remarks as she participated in the “International Conscience Convoy” which arrived on Thursday to the Turkish province of Hatay near the Syrian border after it set off from Istanbul on Tuesday. The event aims to demonstrate solidarity with women detained in the prisons of the Assad regime.
Moussa pointed out that that the continued silence on the practices of the Assad regime against Syrian women, most notably murder, detention, kidnapping and rape, are no longer acceptable. She stressed the need to hold Bashar al-Assad and all war criminals accountable for such practices.
With the participation of activists and NGO members from 55 countries, the International Conscience Convoy started its journey with 55 buses after holding a press conference at Istanbul. Participants in the convoy included 200 women from Bosnia’s Srebrenica as well as dozens of women who lost loved ones at the hands of the Assad regime.
Lawyer Gülden Sönmez, deputy chairman of the Human Rights and Justice Movement (İHAK), said at a press conference in Istanbul about the event that 13,581 women have been subjected to torture and maltreatment in the “dungeons of the Assad regime” and some were raped since the uprising against the regime started in 2011. “Currently there are 6,736 adult and 417 underage prisoners.” (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
