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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Public Statement
AI Index: MDE 24/060/2005 (Public)
News Service No:
211
4 August 2005
Syria: Time to make human rights a reality in Syria
The UN Human Rights Committee issues recommendations to Syria
Amnesty International today called on the Syrian authorities to immediately
take steps towards the full implementation of the recommendations of the
United Nations Human Rights Committee (HRC). The recommendations were
released last week following the Committee’s consideration of Syria's third
periodic report concerning its implementation of the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
Prior to the consideration of Syria’s state report,
Amnesty International submitted written briefings to the Committee focusing
its concerns on: discrimination and violence against women; the state of
emergency legislation; the death penalty; torture and ill-treatment,
arbitrary arrest and detention; unfair trials; restrictions of the rights to
freedom of expression, assembly and association; and discrimination against
Syrian Kurds (please see Memorandum [February 2005] and Update
[June 2005] to the HRC, AI Index, MDE 24/047/2005 and MDE 24/048/2005, both
made public on 18 July 2005).
In its concluding observations the HRC regretted that
the recommendations it had addressed to Syria in 2001 had not been taken
fully into consideration by the authorities and that most of its previous
concerns remain.
The HRC expressed its concern over many areas
including: the continued state of emergency for over 40 years, the use of
the death penalty that is not consistent with the ICCPR, the extensive
limitations on the right to freedom of opinion and expression and on the
right to peaceful assembly, discrimination and violence against women, and
the targeting of human rights defenders.
The HRC issued 15 recommendations to the Syrian
authorities, including to:
take immediate steps to establish an independent and credible commission of
inquiry into all disappearances in line with the recommendations the
Committee made in 2001;
take firm measures to stop the use of
incommunicado detention and eradicate all forms of torture and cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;
immediately release all persons detained because of their activities in the
field of human rights and end all harassment and intimidation of human
rights defenders;
review existing laws in order to ensure equality between men and women;
revise legislation to ensure that any limitations on the right to freedom of
opinion and expression are consistent with the ICCPR;
and
ensure that all members of the Kurdish minority enjoy effective protection
against discrimination and are able to enjoy their own culture and use their
own language.
The fact that Syria acceded to other international human rights instruments
in the reporting period - including the Migrant Workers Convention, the
Convention against Torture, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Discrimination Against Women and the two Optional Protocols to the
Convention on the Rights of the Child - was welcomed by the HRC but, on the
basis of the lack of implementation of the ICCPR, Amnesty International is
concerned that the Syrian authorities may not be prepared to make a reality
of the human rights contained therein either.
To see the HRC’s full concluding observations please go to:
http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrc/hrcs84.htm
To See Amnesty International’s Submissions on Syria to the Human Rights
Committee go to:
http://web.amnesty.org/library/eng-syr/index |
