Press release
Syrian Opposition Coalition
Department of Media and Communications
December 10, 2021
For more than ten years, the international community has largely shirked its responsibilities with regard to protecting civilians and upholding human rights in Syria. The international community has thus far chosen to ignore the war crimes and crimes against humanity that the Assad regime and its allies are committing in Syria, from its failure to preventing the use chemical weapons to holding accountable those using them.
To this day, the international community continues to neglect its role towards the ongoing carnage in Syria. Only yesterday, Human Rights Watch issued a report indicating that 12 people were killed when the Assad regime and Russian occupation forces fired 14 artillery shells on the town of Ariha in rural Idlib on October 20. The attack targeted a residential area with only civilian homes, shops, schools and markets, and where there were not any potential military target.
Before they commemorate this day and set an agenda for the accompanying activities, it is the duty the world’s institutions, organizations and governmental bodies to revive the international conscience that has been thoroughly absent in Syria. The international community is unable to assume its responsibilities and fulfill its obligations, showing a total lack of determination to achieve justice and redress the victims.
Any celebration or commemoration of Human Rights Day without a real commitment to saving the lives of civilians, detainees and the displaced and without seeking to hold the criminals accountable will only represent an attempt to cover up the helpless, cowardly stances for which the world will pay a heavy price in terms of its security, safety and stability in the near future.
The Human Rights Day is an occasion to remind the world of its responsibilities towards civilians and the need for the active states to assume a unified position that puts an end to Russia’s aggression, disruption of international mechanisms, and sponsorship of terrorism and terrorist regimes in Syria and Iran.