Bar Union call UN to hold Turkish occupation accountable for its crimes

Thursday, the Bar Association of Jazira region made a statement to the public opinion condemning the attacks of the Turkish occupation on north and east Syria, in front of the building of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, located in the city of Qamishlo.

In the statement, which was delivered by Ghassan Khalaf, a member of the Bar Association in the Jazira region, dozens of male and female lawyers in the region, raising the union flags, and pictures of the martyr Farhad Shibli, who was martyred in the Turkish occupation’s UAV attack in the Kalar region of the city of Sulaymaniyah in Southern Kurdistan, participated in the statement.

Myriad crimes and violations had been committed in occupied areas by Turkish occupation and Syrian armed factions so far, amid the silence of the international society, despite atrocities, horrible and war crimes that violate of international standers by using internationally prohibited weapons (white phosphorous), barbaric shelling on civilians’ homes and their properties, infrastructure, seizure civilians’ properties and the most horrific is demographic change in occupied areas and replacement of the indigenous residents by setters , the last of which is establishing Safe Zone, which was promoted by Turkish state under fake pretexts lack of security and peace.

The statement noted the violations and crimes of the Turkish occupying state that contradict human rights in NE, Syria, and continued: "The Turkish state has committed all the crimes punishable by international law (crime of aggression, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of ethnic cleansing) that are punishable by the Rome Statute of the Criminal Court. The International Criminal Court of 1998 AD and committed by the Turkish government and its armed factions on an ongoing basis, and this country is still far from international accountability, and criminals are still in a constant state of committing all international crimes, the atrocity of which has not yet touched the doors of international courts, especially the two International Criminal Courts. in The Hague and the European Human Rights in Strasbourg.

The statement stressed that "it is time for the international community to abide by the legitimacy of the peoples' struggle for freedom from control by all available means, including armed struggle. This legitimacy is supported by public international law, and we single out the Charter of the United Nations, the two International Covenants of Rights of 1966, the four Geneva Conventions and their 1977 protocols, and the Resolution the General Assembly of the United Nations issued on November 9, 1974, No. /2246/, because a violation of this commitment puts all UN bodies and organizations in the dock.

The Lawyers Union in Jazira region also explained that “the Turkish state is not satisfied with the threat, but rather implements it, does not consider terrorism, but rather practices it, 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 AD, which prohibited all measures of threat and terrorism, while the Turkish state commits aggression and occupation and other international crimes between them, all of which are punishable by the Rome Statute of 1998.

At the conclusion of its statement, the Lawyers Union condemned "the crimes committed by the Turkish state before the eyes and ears of the international community," calling "all human rights organizations in the world, led by the United Nations and international forces active in the Syrian geography to seek to spare no effort to end the Turkish occupation, and holding accountable and punishing those responsible for these crimes before the competent international courts, and the return of the IDPs to their homes.”

T/S

ANHA