AFP/Damascus
Syrian dissidents formed yesterday a council to co-ordinate anti-regime protests as the UN Human Rights Council decided to probe violations in the government’s crackdown on dissent. The European Union also piled the pressure on President Bashar al-Assad’s regime by adopting yesterday sanctions against 15 more people and five businesses as diplomats said more measures were in the offing. Meanwhile US ambassador Robert Ford travelled to the southern province of Daraa, epicentre of the anti-regime protests, six weeks after he undertook a visit to the flashpoint central city of Hama that infuriated authorities. On the ground security forces conducted arrests in eastern Syria while tanks were seen heading towards the town of Al Bukamal near the border with Iraq, activists said. Dissidents gathered in Istanbul set up a broad-based “national council” to co-ordinate their campaign to topple President Bashar al-Assad, an activist said in the Turkish city after four days of meetings. “We have given martyrs and some of us are injured... With all these efforts and sacrifices, as a result of this responsibility, a sense of unity has been formed,” said activist Ahmed Ramadan. The body brings together opposition groups from inside and outside Syria and the council would convene in about two weeks to elect its chair and adopt bylaws, dissidents said. The council is the latest body announced by dissidents as they try to close ranks against the deadly crackdown on dissent that has claimed more than 2,200 lives since protests were launched in mid-March. Last week 44 “revolutionary blocs” came together into a coalition called the Syrian Revolution General Commission vowing to bring down Assad and the Baath party which has reigned over Syria for nearly 50 years. By 33 votes to four, with nine abstentions, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution in Geneva to “urgently dispatch an independent international commission of inquiry... to investigate alleged violations of international human rights law” in Syria. The resolution came after a damning report by UN investigators suggested the Assad regime was using a “shoot-to-kill” policy against pro-democracy protesters. Opening the meeting on Monday, UN rights chief Navi Pillay told the council that 2,200 people had been killed since protests began in Syria. Council members China, Russia and Cuba opposed the resolution and China’s envoy warned that by adopting it “the council will only complicate the situation, and injure the political process in Syria.” But US ambassador to the council Eileen Donahoe hailed the resolution as “a victory for the Syrian people” that will send them a clear message from the international community saying: “We will not stand by silently as innocent civilians and peaceful protesters are slaughtered by security forces.” Her colleague in Damascus meanwhile went on a tour of the town of Jassem in Syria’s southern Daraa province, epicentre of the protests, where 15 people were killed last week by security forces, according to activists. “Ambassador Robert Ford went this morning to Jassem, 65km south of Damascus as part of his routine diplomatic duties,” an embassy spokesman, who declined to be named, said. Ford—and French ambassador Eric Chevallier—in July angered Syrian authorities when they visited separately the flashpoint central city of Hama, after two huge anti-regime protests were held in the city. About two weeks later Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem warned the envoys not to travel outside Damascus. “We will impose a ban on any (diplomatic) travel more than 25km outside Damascus, if the ambassadors continue to ignore (our) guidance,” Muallem said.