Universal Periodic Review of Syria at the Human Rights Council
UK statement delivered on 31 October 2016.
The UPR takes place at the Palais des Nations, Geneva.
This is a UPR like no other. We face today not a legitimate government seeking to improve human rights, but a vicious regime waging war on its own people. Syria is rightly subject to the Council’s most stringent mechanisms.
The UK utterly condemns the constant and appalling abuse of human rights in Syria. Artillery, barrel bombs, chemical and incendiary weapons are killing civilians and destroying schools and hospitals. Syria continues the arbitrary arrest, illegal detention and mistreatment of hundreds of thousands of its own people, while callously using starvation as a weapon of war.
These actions are fuelling terrorism, not tackling it and must cease.
As minimum demands we recommend:
1) An end to attacks on civilians, and granting of unfettered access to humanitarian organisations, and independent international human rights monitors, particularly the UN Commission of Inquiry. 2) The release of the thousands of Syrians unlawfully detained, especially women and children.