"Unacceptable, Unconscionable, Grotesque"

[tabatha]

Irwin Cotler is a famous Canadian civil rights lawyer, one of Nelson Mandela`s lawyers, defended both Palestinians, Israelis and Russian dissidents in their own courts, former Justice Minister who appointed many women and Native judges, and a longtime fighter against Holocaust denial and genocide.

"Unacceptable, unconscionable, grotesque ... unspeakable ... there are no words to describe these crimes." These are but the latest set of condemnations following a week of the Assad regime's massive atrocity crimes -- resulting in the suspension of the UN mission targeting even the monitors themselves and which include the following:

• The widespread and systematic siege, bombardment, and assault of civilian neighborhoods across Syria -- followed by brutal and barbaric torture and murder of their inhabitants -- many of whom were women and children. The massacre in Houla in late May was but prologue for the series of massacres since the whole constitutive of crimes against humanity in international law. In the words of UK Foreign Minister William Hogue, "Each day reports emerge of 'savage crimes' -- the Syrian military are surrounding and bombarding towns with heavy weaponry, and then unleashing militia groups to terrorize and then murder civilians in their homes. These deliberate military tactics are horrifyingly reminiscent of the Balkans in the 1990s."

• The disclosure by the United Nations Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, of "horrific evidence" of deliberate detention, torture, maiming and murder of children as well as the use of children as human shield -- itself a war crime -- by putting them on tanks so as to prevent attacks by opposition forces.

• "The dangerous intensification of armed violence across Syria" -- in the words of United Nations Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon -- "from Idlib in the north to Daraa in the south." As the Secretary-General put it: "The Syrian Government's intensive military operations -- including the shelling ... of population centers ... as well firing from helicopters ... are resulting in heavy civilian casualties and human rights violations."

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/irwin-cotler/syria-uprising_b_1615499.html?utm_hp_ref=canada-politics

[FedUpWithIt All]

1. It is always so difficult for me when children are involved.

Thanks for the article.

[pscot]

2. Like a lot of us, I tell myself

that this is none of my concern. But I lie. Every human soul has a stake in this. To turn away from it is to be complicit. We went through the same experience in Bosnia during the Clinton years. To his everlasting credit, Bill Clinton did the right thing, despite the moral failure of Bush and the Eoropeans, and the endless carping of the repukes.