Qatar has stressed the importance of accountability for all those responsible for human rights violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria, and for bringing them to international criminal justice.
This came in the statement of the State of Qatar delivered by the Acting Charge d'Affairs of the Permanent Delegation of Qatar in Geneva, Jawhara al-Suwaidi, before the Human Rights Council at its 50th session, during the interactive dialogue with the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic.
Al-Suwaidi said that, since the beginning of the conflict, the Syrian regime has used arbitrary detention and “enforced disappearance” as a means of war.
In this regard, Qatar’s statement said that more than 1mn Syrians have been arrested, and pointed out that more than 150,000 Syrians are still arbitrarily detained or “forcibly disappeared”, leaving behind families suffering from the bitterness of waiting and not knowing the fate of their relatives.
Qatar’s statement strongly condemned, as indicated by the investigation committee, the Syrian regime's intentional concealment of information about the fate and whereabouts of the missing, and their exposure to torture and murder, such as the massacre that took place in Al Tadamon neighbourhood in 2013, which was recently revealed.
Qatar also stressed its agreement with the investigation committee on the importance of establishing a mechanism to reveal the fate of missing and disappeared persons, as it is an ethical and humanitarian issue in addition to being a legal and human rights issue.
Al-Suwaidi stressed the importance of extending the work of the UN Security Council resolution on the mechanism for the delivery of humanitarian aid across the border, and the need to exert more pressure to reach a political solution to the Syrian crisis that meets the aspirations of the Syrian people and is consistent with the Declaration of Geneva 1 and Resolution No 2254.