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Syria: guilty of inaction2 March/ 20:45 / Alhambra / Co-presented with Le Temps, Amnesty International and ARTE
It's been a year now that Syrians have been on the street to say NO to dictatorship. A year during which they've been subjected to a particularly horrible and pernicious form of repression that spares not even their children. In Deraa, Homs, Hama and even Damascus, the exactions are no longer countable: killings, torture, arbitrary detention, disappearances, rape. Hospitals have been transformed into arrest and physical abuse centres.
Recording at least 5,000 deaths, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay exhorted Damascus in December to "answer" for what she termed "crimes against humanity". For its part, the National Syrian Council, representing the opposition government in exile, has been repeatedly invoking the "responsibility to protect", calling in particular for the creation of humanitarian corridors to serve local populations.
The international community has turned a deaf ear to these calls. Why this inertia? Russia's and China's vetoes in the UN Security Council are not the only explanation for this criminal silence. The principle of intervention was quickly accepted in the case of Libya. Why the double standard? What about humanitarian corridors or buffer zones to come to the aid of Syrian civilians?
In December, an Arab League delegation was sent to Syria but, closely watched by the Syrian regime, the legitimacy of its mission was put into serious doubt. Several observers, like Anouar Malek from Algeria, who denounced a "travesty of justice" and declared that he didn't want to bear witness to a "humanitarian crisis", threw in the sponge.
At a time when the possibility of civil war throughout the country is to be feared, the question of outside intervention is being asked. But how to exercise the responsibility to protect without further fanning the flames in the country and region?
The film Syrie, dans l'enfer de la répression will be screened in presence of the film-maker, Sofia Amara.
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