Syria has stressed that confronting global terrorism requires true international cooperation and putting all relevant international resolutions into effect, on the top of which the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, taking into consideration the national leadership of counter-terrorism efforts and the need to respect countries’ sovereignty and national mandate.
Head of Syria’s mission in Madrid, Ambassador Samir al-Qaseer, said in a statement Tuesday evening during the UN high-ranking conference titled “For a Future Free of Terrorism”, that one of the features of the ongoing terrorist war against Syria is the phenomenon of bringing in foreign terrorists and their families from all over the world to Syria through the internet and social media for criminal purposes.
According to Qaseer, more than 60,000 of these foreign terrorists are held in illegal prisons controlled by terrorist separatist militias within horrible humanitarian circumstances where children and women are exposed to different forms of torture, sexual abuse and other human rights violations, not to mention taking children from their mothers for suspicion of possible extremism.
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The Ambassador pointed out that the Syrian State’s efforts to re-establish its authority and to empty these detention centers of detainees are hampered by the insistence of some countries on not implementing their legal obligations, represented in taking back their terrorist nationals and their families, holding them accountable for their crimes and reintegrating them into their societies.
The Ambassador went on to say that when discussing the issue of international terrorism and human rights, one should point to the fact that some countries have adopted certain policies that amount to economic terrorism by imposing illegal unilateral coercive measures against certain peoples, including the Syrian people. He said that these coercive measures prevent the Syrian people from having access to their basic needs in a blatant violation of the UN Charter and human rights conventions.
He clarified that during the past ten years, the terrorist organizations misled a big number of Syrian youths by exploiting their difficult economic conditions to teach them the extremist takfiri ideology that turned them into tools to implement the terrorists’ plans.
To face this challenge, the Syrian state put plans and programs to dry up the resources of extremist thinking and upgrade the youths’ awareness by adopting all-out settlement and reconciliation processes as a means to reintegrate the misled citizens into their society and help them return to normal life, Qaseer clarified, pointing out that since 2011, President al-Assad has issued 20 amnesty decrees that helped the misled citizens return to normal life within their communities and families.
Syria reaffirms the need to support capacity-building activities and technical assistance in the field of combating terrorism and to enhance national efforts that aim at strengthening the sovereignty of law, achieving the priorities of sustainable development in a way that leads to a comprehensive social approach that contributes to combating terrorism and its root causes, Al-Qaseer said.
He indicated that Syria is working hard to modernize the national laws and adapt them to the challenges it has witnessed during the past ten years with the aim of confronting the different forms of crimes committed by the armed groups that have been designated by the Security Council as terrorist, mainly “ISIS”, “Jabhat Al-Nusra” and other affiliated terrorist entities.
The judicial authorities and law enforcement institutions in Syria are also exerting relentless effort to guarantee respect for human rights when applying their national anti-terrorism legislation and prosecution procedures, Qaseer pointed out.
This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
