Latest Comments by Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay

Press Release

Syrian Coalition

April 16, 2014

The United Nations human rights chief, Navi Pillay, condemned yesterday “the rampant use of torture in detention facilities across Syria.” She said systematic torture constitutes a war crime and amounts to crimes against humanity “which is almost certainly the case in Syria.”

The Syrian Coalition has always condemned abuses of human rights, including torture, committed by the Assad regime as well as by some extremist groups, the existence of which was only made possible by the chaos the regime deliberately created.

The Assad regime once again showed its contempt for the world body. In a release issued by Syria’s mission to Geneva, the regime accused the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of adopting “a premeditated position on Syria” and of not abiding by “principles of impartiality and neutrality.” The latest repeated coarse remarks by representatives of the regime prove once again the extent of the regime’s disconnectedness, irrelevance and desperation.

The Syrian Coalition has repeatedly supported a fair independent investigation into human rights abuses and war crimes in Syria, which is something the regime has emphatically refused to do. Victims of the Assad regime’s brutality have the right to at least see perpetrators of war crimes brought to justice