Rights Groups Welcome UN Draft on Syria
GENEVA, Nov. 17 – In an attempt to influence a UN
resolution on Syrian abuses now being debated by member
states, a coalition of 20 famous dissidents and rights
groups today circulated their own draft which specifically
calls for the post of an independent UN expert to
investigate gross violations in that country.Click here for
proposed UNGA Resolution on Situation of Human Rights in
Syria.
“We welcome the draft UN General Assembly
resolution on Syria, and congratulate Britain, France and
Germany for their initiative,” said Hillel Neuer, director
of the non-governmental UN Watch monitoring group in Geneva,
which sent the draft to 193 UN member states on behalf of a
coalition of human rights groups and dissidents. “We
strongly hope that Arab states including Saudi Arabia,
Jordan, Qatar, Morocco and Kuwait will stand up and be
counted as co-sponsors.”
Sponsors of the NGO draft
resolution include well-known former political prisoners
Yang Jianli of China, Ahmad Batebi of Iran, Fidel Suarez
Cruz and Berta Antunez of Cuba, Rebiya Kadeer of the Uyghur
people and Grace Kwinjeh of Zimbabwe, as well as UN Watch,
the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights, Human Rights
Foundation and Viet Tan.
The text was drafted at a recent
summit
of dissidents held in New York during the UN General
Assembly, which included an opening address by Syrian rights
activist Rami Nakhleh.
The dissidents’ draft calls upon
the Human Rights Council to “urgently establish the
mandate of a Special Rapporteur for human rights in the
Syrian Arab Republic, to monitor the situation in the
country, collect information and recommend to the UN system
actions to be taken.”
The NGO text also asks the
Secretary-General to report on Syria to the General Assembly
and the Human Rights Council at its next sessions, and would
ensure discussion of the Syrian human rights situation at
future sessions.
The debate on the official UN text is
expected within the next week at the world body’s Third
Committee on human rights, which meets this month in New
York.
www.unwatch.org
UN Watch is a Geneva-based human rights organization founded in 1993 to monitor UN compliance with the principles of its Charter. It is accredited as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Special Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and as an Associate NGO to the UN Department of Public Information (DPI).
ENDS