Sanctions on Syria Violate Human Rights Principles, Constitute Terrorism against the Syrians  http://www.islamicinvitationturkey.com/2012/05/20/sanctions-on-syria-violate-human-rights-principles-constitute-terrorism-against-the-syrians/

The Foreign and Expatriates Ministry on Saturday said the sanctions imposed on Syria, which have exceeded 58 packages, violate the basic principles of the human rights system in the world, describing the stances of countries which have imposed the sanctions as characterized by hypocrisy using human rights as a cover to interfere in other countries’ affairs and impose their control over them.

“How else could human rights violation in Syria be in support of the Syrian people,” wondered the Foreign Ministry in a report addressed to the UN Human Rights Council and the UN Secretary General.

It said that the Syrian people have been twice the victim of the armed terrorist groups; “once through the direct killing operations and again through the sanctions imposed by the countries which are funding, backing and hosting these groups.”

The report, in which the Ministry revealed the impact of the sanctions on human rights in Syria, said the sanctions, that have exceeded 58 packages of sanctions imposed by the US, the EU, the Arab League, Turkey, Switzerland, Japan, Canada and Australia, “violate the basic principles which every human rights system in the world was based on; mainly that of not letting any person be subject to need or fear.”

The Ministry added that these sanctions also violate the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the right to development, work, food, health, freedom of movement as well as the right to not being exposed to penury and the right to housing.

The report described the positions of the countries which imposed the sanctions on Syria as characterized by hypocrisy, accusing them of using human rights as a cover to interfere in other countries’ affairs and impose their control over them.

The Foreign and Expatriates Ministry refuted in its report the claims of the countries which call for ‘protecting and defending the Syrian people’, citing these countries’ frantic move ‘in defense of what they claim to be freedom of opinion and expression in Syria’, “while at the same time they impose sanctions and freeze the assets of the main Syrian print, audio and visual media and even those of Syrian websites and bloggers that work to reveal the reality of what is happening in Syria.”

“While those countries call for the ‘right to access to the internet’, they banned the supply of all software to Syria and all that is related to computer and telecommunications industry and electricity sector that enable access to internet services,” the report added.

The Ministry wondered “how can preventing all forms of cooperation with the Syrian Specifications and Criteria Commission be considered ‘protection of human rights’? when this commission aims at serving the consumers, authors and inventors and protecting their rights.”

It also wondered at the reasons behind freezing the assets of the Popular Credit Bank, the Post Saving Fund, the Real Estate Bank, the Industrial Bank, the Agricultural Bank, that are all for the service of the Syrian people as they attract the low and middle income people and small investors and are considered important tools to activate the economy.

The report reviewed the details of the role the sanctions played in the fuel and electricity crises suffered by the Syrian people last winter, underscoring how the US, the EU and Canada banned exporting oil derivatives to Syria, including domestic gas and diesel, depriving the people of heating fuel and the farmers of heating fuel for winter farms.

It also explained how this ban on supply of fuel caused large number of public and private factories to halt, leaving the workers and their families victims to unemployment.

The report continued how the EU completed the series of collective sanctions on the Syrian people with the European Investment Bank halting funding of electricity generating projects to block efforts of the citizens to resort to electric power to fill the shortage of fuel.

The report added that the armed terrorist groups have crowned their supporters’ efforts towards imposing collective sanctions on the Syrian people through detonating and looting gas oil tanks and using domestic gas containers as bombs to kill the Syrians.

“The other countries which imposed the sanctions took control of tightening the blockade on the Syrian people through banning oil transfer to Syria onboard any tanker carrying their flags,” the report continued, noting that this gives only “a simple example of these countries’ connivance to impose their will on the millions of Syrian citizens not minding the extent of damage they have caused.”

The Ministry described the latest U.S. and European sanctions on Syria as ‘economic terrorism’, referring to the U.S. president’s decision on May 1st, 2012 in which sanctions were imposed on citizens and establishments in countries which do not abide by the U.S. sanctions on Syria.

It said that the collective sanctions against the Syrian people are illegal and aimed at punishing the Syrian people for rejecting to implement foreign agendas on the Syrian ground.

The report added that those countries’ practices against the Syrian people are quite similar to those of the armed terrorist groups which are killing and terrorizing the Syrians to prevent them from expressing their views on protecting their country against chaos and terrorism.

Syria called on the international community to condemn these other sanctions against the developing countries, and called for complete and unconditional implementation of the UN General Assembly resolutions which consider sanctions imposed by countries without authorization from the UN as violations of human rights.