After the triumphant readmission to the Arab League, from which it was expelled in 2011, the Syria di Bashar el-Assad achieved a new diplomatic success: theInvitationofficially forwarded last week, to participate in the Cop-28 scheduled for later this year in the UAE.
One of the “guarantees” requested by the Arab League from the Syrian president makes us smile bitterly: no retaliation against returning refugees. Which has actually been happening for some time. The goal of the states that have welcomed the persecuted Syrian politicians in recent years is to get rid of them: this is what they have been doing for some time the Lebanon (and which, moreover, some European states intend to do), regardless of the fact that upon their return to Syria, they will be subjected to prison and torture.
In addition to the issue of refugees and the dramatic situation experienced by displaced persons in the north-western areas of Syria also affected by the earthquake, there are other issues that do not leave us calm from the point of view of respect for human rights. Accounts for it Amnesty International Report 2022-2023.
Meanwhile, the conflict has not ended. As also reported by Independent International Commission on the Syrian Arab Republic (the United Nations Commission of Inquiry), the Syrian government, backed by the Russian military, has launched indiscriminate attacks and deliberate attacks on water infrastructure, IDP camps, poultry farms and residential areas in the north-west of the country.
Then there is the issue of impunity for the human rights violations committed over the past decade: The Syrian government has continued to subject tens of thousands of people, including journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers and political activists, to enforced disappearance, many for more than 10 years.
In February and April, the authorities partially shed light on the fate of 1,056 people subjected to enforced disappearance since the beginning of the conflict, updating the documentation of the civil register ed issuing death certificates. These established the date of death, but did not give details of the circumstances under which these people died. The authorities have not returned the bodies of the deceased to their families.
Then there were some provisions on human rights, of extremely limited scope.
On April 30, President Assad issued Legislative Decree No. 7 which he granted a general amnesty for “terrorism” crimes, with the exception of those who had caused deaths. The authorities have not specified the number of prisoners who have benefited from the provision, but local organizations have calculated at least 150 releases.
It went into effect on March 30 the first law against torturewhich however does not address the impunity granted to military and security officials and does not provide compensation for living victims of torture or for the families of those who died.
According to the aforementioned United Nations Commission of Inquiry, a torturing detainees through various techniques such as “electric shocks, burning parts of the body and being stuffed into a car tire (picture) and suspended from the ground by one or both limbs for prolonged periods (shabeh), a practice which was often accompanied by severe beatings inflicted with various instruments, such as sticks and cables”.
Finally, in April, following growing criticism of the government’s socio-economic policies, it was approved new legislation on computer crimes which established harsh sentences and administrative fines against anyone who criticizes the authorities or the constitution online.
The articles 24 and 25 criminalize the “electronic slander”understood as the sharing between two people, even through private communications, of slanderous or humiliating information towards other individuals. The articles 27, 28 and 29 provide for sentences of between three and 15 years in prison for the online publication of content that “aimes or calls for the illegal change of the constitution”, “damages the prestige of the state” and “weakens the financial position of the state”.