UN to investigate violence against Syrian protesters

NATIONS yesterday agreed to launch a UN-led investigation of Syria’s bloody crackdown on its uprising, demanding that its government immediately stop the violence, release political prisoners and lift restrictions on the news media and access to the internet.

In a 26-9 vote that coincided with Syrian forces again opening fire on demonstrators, the UN’s top human rights body used a day-long special session to say it “unequivocally condemns the use of lethal violence against peaceful protestors by the Syrian authorities and the hindrance to access of medical treatment”.

UN officials said the killing of more than 450 people during the protests may include crimes against humanity.

The Geneva-based Human Rights Council said it would ask the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to urgently dispatch a mission to investigate “all alleged violations of international human rights law and to establish the facts and circumstances of such violations and of the crimes perpetrated”.

The council said it wanted reports at its next full sessions and urged Syrian president Bashar Assad’s government “to co-operate fully with and grant access to personnel from the mission”.

It also requested that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the UN’s top human rights official, Navi Pillay, provide logistical support.

China and Russia opposed the vote, claiming it was political meddling. Saudi Arabia and six other nations abstained.

Syria’s UN ambassador Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui said the council was misguided in passing the motion, claiming his country was only defending itself against extremists.

“The council is acting under the pretext of humanitarian action to meddle in the internal affairs of a country,” he told the council. “It’s a return to a colonialist mentality.”

It was only the second special session the council has ever called. The first came in February to deal with Libya.