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Head of UK Labour party fails to mention Syria at conference

September 29, 2017 at 3:44 pm

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn [Chatham House/Flickr]

Twelve UK-based Syrian organisations sent a joint letter to Jeremy Corbyn over his failure to mention the war in Syria during the three-day Labour Party Conference.

“We must put our values at the heart of our foreign policy. Democracy and human rights are not an optional extra to be deployed selectively,” Jeremy Corbyn, Labour party head, said at the party’s conference on 27 September. Corbyn condemned Saudi Arabia’s military action in Yemen, authoritative regimes in Egypt and violence in Myanmar, Congo and Palestine.

“No mention, however, about Syria. Are Syrian lives not worthy of your mention?” the joint letter, seen by MEMO, stated.

Since 2012, Corbyn has not spoken out against the atrocities inflicted upon the Syrian people.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests. Since then, more than 470,000 people have been killed and in excess of 13 million displaced, according to the UN.

Read: UK rights group in court over Syria drone strikes

An outside view of the damaged primary school after airstrikes hit Idlib, Syria on 21 September 2017 [Hayyan Ebu Resit/Anadolu Agency]