By Our Foreign Staff
8:59AM GMT 02 Dec 2011
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
A special session of the UN Human Rights
Council will be asked to adopt an independent report that the Syrian
regime has committed multiple crimes against humanity in its crackdown
on protests.
Navi Pillay, the High Commissioner for Human
Rights will say Syrian forces committed crimes against humanity,
including the murder and torture of children, following orders from the
highest levels of Bashar al-Assad's regime.
The
panel gathered evidence from 233 witnesses and victims on the brutal
repression of anti-regime protesters but was not given permission to
enter the country.
Activists reported up to 22 people killed Thursday, adding to what has become a daily grind of violence.
"We
are placing the (death toll) figure at 4,000 but really the reliable
information coming to us is that it's much more than that," Pillay said
in Geneva.
"As soon as there were more
and more defectors threatening to take up arms, I said this in August
before the Security Council, that there's going to be a civil war," she
added. "And at the moment, that's how I am characterizing this."
"The overwhelming use of force has been taken by
Assad and his regime," Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman said.
"So there's no kind of equanimity here."
International
intervention, such as the Nato action in Libya that helped topple
longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, is all but out of the question in
Syria. But there is real concern that the conflict in Syria could spread
chaos across the Middle East.
Syria borders five countries with whom it shares religious and ethnic minorities and, in Israel's case, a fragile truce.
Recent
economic sanctions imposed by the European Union, the Arab League and
Turkey were aimed at persuading Assad to end his crackdown. On Thursday,
the EU announced a new round of sanctions against Syrian individuals
and businesses linked to the unrest.
The new sanctions target 12
people and 11 companies, and add to a long list of those previously
sanctioned by the EU. The full list of names of those targeted will not
be known until they are published Friday in the EU's official journal.
The
27-member bloc also imposed some sanctions on Syria's ally Iran in the
wake of an attack this week by a mob on the British Embassy in Tehran,
the Iranian capital.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague
accused Iran of supporting Assad's crackdown, saying "there is a link
between what is happening in Iran and what is happening in Syria."
The
sanctions are punishing Syria's ailing economy - a dangerous
development for Damascus because the prosperous merchant classes are key
to propping up the regime.
Syrian business leaders have long
traded political freedoms for economic privileges. The sanctions, along
with increasing calls by the opposition for general nationwide strikes,
could sap their resolve.
A resident of the flashpoint city of Homs said businessmen are growing impatient.
"The
sanctions against the regime are harming them," he said. "Merchants
only care about their interests. Many merchants are complaining that
their business is dropping."
Activists also are trying to peel the
business elite away from their allegiance to Assad. On Thursday,
opposition groups called for a general strike, but it was difficult to
gauge how widely Syrians were abiding by the strike. The regime has
sealed the country off from foreign journalists and prevented
independent reporting.
Residents in Syria's two economic
powerhouses - the capital of Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo -
reported business as usual Thursday.
But a video posted online by
activists showed mostly closed shops in the Damascus suburb of Zabadani,
which also has seen large anti-government protests. And a resident in
Homs said most of the shops were closed, except for those selling food.
Homs has been one of Syria's most volatile cities, with increasing
clashes between troops and army defectors.
Syria has been the site of the deadliest crackdown against the Arab Spring's protests.
Deaths
in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen have numbered in the hundreds. Libya's toll
is unknown and likely higher than Syria's, but the conflict there
differed because it descended early on into an outright civil war
between two armed sides.
Since the revolt began in Syria, the
regime has blamed the bloodshed on terrorists acting out a foreign
conspiracy to divide and undermine the country. It has laid bare Syria's
simmering sectarian tensions, with disturbing reports of killings like
those seen in Iraq.
Syria is an overwhelmingly Sunni country of 22
million, but Assad and the ruling elite belong to the minority Alawite
sect. Assad, and his father before him, stacked key military posts with
Alawites to meld the fate of the army and the regime - a tactic aimed at
compelling troops to fight to the death to protect the Assad family
dynasty.
The leader of the Free Syrian Army, breakaway air force
Col Riad al-Asaad, acknowledges nearly all the defectors under his
command - some 15,000 - are low-level Sunni conscripts. The men are
armed with rocket-propelled grenades, rifles and guns they took with
them when they deserted, as well as light weapons they acquired on the
black market, he says.
Until recently, most of the bloodshed was
caused by security forces firing on mainly peaceful protesters. There
have been growing reports of army defectors and armed civilians fighting
Assad's forces - a development that some say plays into the regime's
hands by giving government troops a pretext to crack down with
overwhelming force.
As the violence continues, the 22-member Arab
League in Cairo unveiled this week a list of top officials it wants to
prevent from traveling to Arab countries - a humiliating affront to a
country that prides itself on Arab nationalism.
