Seventeen Syrian human rights and civil society organizations sent a letter to the President of the UN Security Council and the Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations, Linda Thomas Greenfield, calling for holding the Assad regime accountable for war crimes. The letter came in response to the emergence of new evidence from Al-Tadamon suburb of Damascus where regime forces committed a horrific massacre back in 2013.
The organizations expressed their deep shock at the massacre in which at least 41 civilians were executed by members of Branch 227 of the Assad regime’s Military Intelligence in April 2013. The massacre has recently been revealed in a report by the Guardian newspaper.
The organizations demanded immediate action by the UN Security Council in response to the massacre which amounts to a war crime, and to hold the perpetrators to account.
The organizations pointed out that the leaked video clearly shows the perpetrators marching the victims, men and women blindfolded and handcuffed, into an execution pit, then shooting them one by one and setting the bodies on fire while the perpetrators were laughing and smoking.
The letter added that in the days following the publication of the video, families began looking for a recognizable face among those who were killed in the massacre. It stressed that many Syrians expressed their outrage at the international community’s failure to respond to this horrible massacre the way it did with regard to the crimes that the Russian forces are committing in Ukraine.
The organizations emphasized that it is about time that the international community realize that impunity for gross violations of human rights in Syria has far-reaching and cross-border consequences.
They stressed that for 11 years, Syrians have been subjected to crimes similar to Al-Tadamon Massacre at the hands of the Assad regime, adding that the world has ever since ignored the Syrian people’s suffering. They also stressed that there can be no peace in Syria without justice.
The Syrian organizations also called on the United States, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, to hold a meeting on Al-Tadamon Massacre and launch an independent investigation into the massacre.
The Syrian Opposition Coalition earlier sent a legal memorandum to the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, President of the UN General Assembly Abdullah Shahid, and President of the UN Security Council for the current session Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield, Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations regarding the Tadamon Massacre.
The memo called for an emergency session of the UN General Assembly to discuss the steps that must be taken to hold the Assad regime accountable, delegitimize it, and refer it to the International Criminal Court in light of the new evidence published by the Guardian newspaper and the Assad regime’s continued actions in exterminating the Syrian people.
(Source: SOC’s Media Department)
