Qatar calls for global action for accountability, justice for Syria victims

Qatar has urged the international community to pressure Syria’s regime to revive and rejoin talks for the revision of the country’s constitution, in the pursuit of justice for the victims of the ongoing Syrian civil war.

As part of the UN Human Rights Council’s 55th session, an interactive dialogue was held with the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic over the past week, in an effort to reach a political resolution to the 13-year-long Syrian civil war.

In a statement delivered at the session by Abdullah Bin Ali Behzad, the second secretary of Qatar’s Permanent Mission in Geneva, he stressed the international community’s collective responsibility to address and attempt to end the human rights violations and war crimes committed by the regime of Bashar Al-Assad against the Syrian people.

Behzad hailed the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) ruling on 16 November last year, which ordered the Syrian regime to take decisive measures for the prevention of torture and other human rights abuses. He also reiterated Qatar’s call for efforts to ensure accountability and justice for the victims of the Assad regime and affiliated parties.

The statement by the Qatari representative reconfirmed Doha’s stance against Damascus and efforts to restore ties with the regime, with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani stating at the UN’s General Assembly in September that “It is not permissible to condone the gross injustice that has befallen the brotherly Syrian people as if it is its destiny. The crisis is still awaiting a comprehensive settlement through a political process leading to a political transition.”

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