The international community’s chilling complacency towards wide-scale human rights violations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has emboldened governments to commit appalling violations during 2018 by giving them the sense that they need never fear facing justice, said Amnesty International as it published a review of human rights in the region last year.
The rights watchdog group on Tuesday said that the Assad regime forces “continued to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity, while Russia and China have helped obstruct accountability for these crimes.”
“For too long the lack of international pressure to ensure that warring parties committing war crimes and other violations of international law are held to account has allowed perpetrators of atrocities across MENA to escape unpunished,” Amnesty added.
The report describes how authorities across the region have unashamedly persisted with “ruthless campaigns of repression in order to crush dissent, cracking down on protesters, civil society and political opponents, often with tacit support from powerful allies.”
The Syrian Coalition said that the international community is to blame for the Assad regime’s persistence in committing war crimes in Syria and the killing of more than half a million people through the use of conventional and internationally prohibited weapons.
Amnesty International’s research has also revealed how hundreds of civilians were killed and thousands injured by the US-led coalition forces during its Raqqa offensive to oust the Islamic State armed group, including in attacks that violated international humanitarian law. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
