On Christmas Day, we lit up Facebook for the people of Aleppo in Syria, who have just seen their city fall to the government forces of Syrian leader Bashar Al Assad.
Thousands of lives were lost, while others lost their home and all sense of hope.
Now, we ask you to join with Amnesty International to help end human rights abuses across Syria.
You can sign up here.
“Amnesty International has been researching human rights abuses since the conflict began, almost six years ago,” Amnesty International Ireland’s Executive Director Colm O’Gorman wrote on JOE just last week.
“The refusal to tackle human rights abuses has paved the way for a litany of horrors: hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, resulting from air and ground attacks; wanton destruction of cities and towns across the country, suspected chemical attacks and widespread use of cluster munitions and much of this targeting civilian populations.
“We presented this evidence to governments across the globe and to the UN Security Council (UNSC). It has not stopped the bloodshed.
“One of the core obligations of international law is to protect civilians from atrocities that “shock the conscience of humanity”. Instead of taking steps to end unlawful attacks on civilians, holding perpetrators to account and stopping the flow of arms that is fuelling the conflict, the UN Security Council has sat back.
“For years, Amnesty International has been calling for the Permanent Five members of the UNSC to refrain from using the veto in cases of genocide and other mass atrocities, which would enable the UN to take action more easily when civilian lives are at risk.
“The need for a dramatic overhaul of the UNSC is painfully clear. With every civilian death in Syria the message gets louder: we must act now. We must stand up for the protection of civilians and demand respect for international law. We must not accept the wilful destruction of lives, communities and a country. With your support, we can expose these horrific human rights abuses and demand that perpetrators be held to account.”
Read Colm’s full column here.
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