{"id":263,"date":"2011-05-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/?p=263","title":{"rendered":"A global response to Syria\u2019s spiralling crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nA global
\nresponse to Syria’s spiralling crisis<\/span><\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\nhttp:\/\/livewire.amnesty.org\/2011\/05\/26\/a-global-response-to-syria%E2%80%99s-spiralling-crisis\/#more-3657<\/a>
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nFaced with the
\nnews that since mid-March more than 700 people have been killed in Syria,
\nthousands have been arrested and hundreds remain detained incommunicado and at
\nrisk of torture, signing an online petition can seem like an inadequate
\nresponse.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nAs army tanks
\nshell residential areas in cities, protesters demanding political form are met
\nwith violent suppression by the authorities and Syrians flee to Lebanon and
\nother neighbouring countries, clicking a button on a website can seem a bit
\nmeaningless.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd that would
\nbe true if you were the only person to do this.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nBut when 165,
\n953 people join together and commit to taking an individual action
\ncollectively, that is when we see our power to mobilize for positive change.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nAmnesty
\nInternational has repeatedly called on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to rein
\nin his security forces, stop unlawful killings, torture and other gross abuses,
\nand hold those responsible to account.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nBut the
\ngovernment has shown no willingness to do so and, instead, has intensified
\nrepression against its own people as they have continued – despite the bullets
\n– to stand up and demand change.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nConsequently,
\nAmnesty International called on the UN Security Council to refer Syria to the
\nProsecutor of the International Criminal Court in the same way that it recently
\nreferred Libya to the ICC Prosecutor, but the Security Council has failed so
\nfar to take this step. <\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nThanks to the
\npower of our movement, we have now stepped up our demand to make sure that the
\nSyrian authorities and the international community hear our calls.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nIn the last
\nfew weeks 165, 953 people from across the globe – including, most courageously,
\nfrom within Syria itself – signed on to a petition supporting the call for the
\ncrisis in Syria to be referred to the International Criminal Court and urging
\nthe President to stop the bloodshed.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nIn the Middle
\nEast and North Africa, all across Europe, throughout the Americas and into Asia
\nand the Pacific region, individual people took a small action – they clicked a
\nbutton and signed a petition – and as they did so the call was strengthened and
\nthis simple act became a powerful act of solidarity with the Syrian people and
\nan outcry of dismay at the grave human rights crimes now being committed in
\nSyria.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nNow, in the
\ncoming days the names of these people collected from Turkey to Tunisia, from
\nCanada to the Czech Republic, from Venezuela to Vietnam, and from Spain to
\nSyria – all united in their call to stop the bloodshed in Syria – will be
\ndelivered to the Syrian authorities to keep up the pressure on them.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nWe are sending
\na copy of this petition with a letter from Amnesty International’s Secretary
\nGeneral Salil Shetty directly to President al-Assad – but to make sure that
\nthey hear our demands over the coming days we will also be delivering copies of
\nthe 550-page petition to Syrian embassies around the world.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Syrian
\nauthorities must be left in no doubt that those committing abuses against their
\nown people will be held to account – and the best, surest way to make this
\nclear is for the UN Security Council, without more delay, to refer the
\nsituation in Syria to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\nA global
\nresponse to Syria’s spiralling crisis<\/span><\/strong><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nFaced with the
\nnews that since mid-March more than 700 people have been killed in Syria,
\nthousands have been arrested and hundreds remain detained incommunicado and at
\nrisk of torture, signing an online petition can seem like an inadequate
\nresponse.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}