UN human rights committee condemns Syria for crackdown

The UN condemnation was seen by some as morally but not legally significant  The death toll from a new surge of violence in Syrian flashpoints has risen to at least 33, activists said Wednesday, adding that among the dead are six children and teenagers and five army defectors.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement received in Nicosia that 28 civilians were killed on Tuesday by security force gunfire, in addition to the five defectors.
"Twenty-eight civilians were killed during search operations and indiscriminate firing from checkpoints manned by soldiers," it said.
Among the dead were 11 people killed in the besieged central city of Homs, six in southern Daraa, six in northwestern Idlib, three in Deir Ezzor to the east and two in central Hama.
The Britain-based rights group had previously given a toll of 17 dead on Tuesday, including five boys in the flashpoint central province of Homs and a 12-year-old in the east.
The spike in deaths comes despite a growing chorus of international condemnation of the bloody crackdown on dissent by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday became the second leader of a neighbouring country to call on Assad to step down, following a similar call by Jordan's King Abdullah II last week.
Later, the U.N. General Assembly’s human rights committee on Tuesday condemned Syria for its eight-month crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in a vote backed by Western nations and a number of Arab states.
The resolution was passed by 122 votes to 13 with 41 abstentions at the U.N. General Assembly’s human rights committee. Syria’s U.N. envoy accused the European backers of the resolution – Britain, France and Germany – of “inciting civil war.”
The resolution “strongly condemns the continued grave and systematic human rights violations by the Syrian authorities,” highlighting the “arbitrary executions” and “persecution” of protesters and human rights defenders.
It also condemns “arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture and ill treatment of detainees, including children” and demands an immediate end to all such violations.
Arab nations Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco and Qatar were among more than 60 countries to co-sponsor the resolution.
Russia and China, which vetoed a European-drafted resolution that would have condemned Syria in the U.N. Security Council last month, voted against it.
The United Nations says more than 3,500 people, most of them civilians, have been killed since the protests first broke out in mid-March.
Syrian U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari said the resolution had no meaning for Damascus and portrayed it as a U.S.-inspired political move.
“Despite the fact that the draft resolution was basically presented by three European states, however it is no secret that the United States of America is ... the main mind behind the political campaign against my country,” he said.
“This draft resolution has no relevance to human rights, other than it is part of an adversarial American policy against my country,” he added.
Ja’afari displayed for delegates what he said were documents containing the “names of terrorists arrested while smuggling arms through the borders of Syria.” He said the documents offered clear proof of a U.S.-led plot to topple the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
He said Britain, France and Germany were “part of the escalation of violence in my country” and were “propagating violent sedition” in Syria.
“How can you believe they are not interfering when they are inciting civil war?” said Ja’afari, who was given support in speeches by Iranian, North Korean, Venezuelan and Cuban envoys.
“We will not let the former colonial powers interfere in our affairs again,” he said, indicating the Assad government would not change its policies.
After Russia and China vetoed the Security Council resolution last month –insisting it would be used as an excuse to carry out regime change – Western powers insisted they would return to the U.N.’s supreme body to get condemnation.
The Arab League move to suspend Syria and order sanctions has strengthened the case for action by the Security Council, according to western diplomats.
Egypt, where new unrest is rocking the country, supported the resolution.
Saudi ambassador Abdullah al Mouallimi stressed the Arab League efforts to end the violence but pointed the finger at the Assad government when he said “obstacles have been put in place which impede these goals”.
He said the international community “must send a message to the Syrian people” with the resolution.
Britain's foreign secretary William Hague urged Syrian opposition figures to both overcome their differences and renounce violence.  Speaking after a meeting with the Syrian National Council and other opposition figures, he said:
I've also emphasised the importance to them of achieving a united platform and a unified body among the opposition. At an extreme moment in their nation's history it is important for opposition groups to be able to put aside their own differences and come to a united view of the way forward.  I've also emphasised to them the importance of non violent protest and the importance of retaining international support in this situation through non violent protest.
Meanwhile, the Arab League in Cairo has moved its meetings to a hotel near Cairo airport after clashes at Tahrir Square near to where its headquarters are located instensified. The League is to decide on how to handle the Syrian sitation today after it failed to convince Assad to stop the bloodshed sweeping the country.