The Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC) called for participating in the sit-in protest outside the venue of the meeting of the Interpol’s General Assembly in the Turkish city of Istanbul on Tuesday. The move came as an expression of the Syrian people’s rejection of the Interpol’s recent decision to readmit the Assad regime in its network.
Participants included SOC’s members, activists, human rights defenders and media professionals.
Participants raised banners stressing that the Assad regime must be held accountable for the crimes it is committing against the Syrian people. They also demanded the expulsion of the regime from the organization, the freezing of its membership, and denying it access to information of Syrian refugees to protect them from prosecution and arrest.
The SOC’s representative of in Turkey, Nazir al-Hakim, decried the Interpol’s decision to reactivate the means of communication with the Assad regime. He stressed that the decision constituted a blatant violation of Article Two of the organization’s legal framework, which is “to ensure and promote the widest possible mutual assistance between all criminal police authorities within the limits of the laws existing in the different countries and in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
Al-Hakim also stressed that the Interpol did not abide by the ethical and legal standards and obligations laid out in the human rights conventions of the United Nations and the European Union, nor did it adhere to impartiality, transparency and integrity.
For his part, member of the SOC’s political committee, Abdelbaset Abdullatif, stressed the need to stop any form of cooperation with the Assad regime. He said: “Stop the death partnership that you built through your alliance with the Assad regime,” adding that this cooperation will enable Bashar al-Assad to hunt down opponents by fabricating charges against whoever revolted against his dictatorial regime.
Abdullatif pointed out that it is unacceptable to resume cooperation with a regime that is included, along with all members of its government, army and security forces, on the US and European sanctions lists. The regime was also condemned by independent international investigation committees for war crimes and crimes against humanity, especially the crime of using chemical weapons.
(Source: SOC’s Media Department)
