The Permanent Representative of Italy to the United Nations in Geneva, Ambassador Vincenzo Grassi, delivered a statement during the Interactive dialogue with the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, chaired by Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, withing the framework of the 53rd session of the Human Rights Council.
Ambassador Grassi stated how the status quo in Syria in unacceptable and unsustainable, especially after twelve years of unspeakable suffer for the Syrian people. He underlined how systematic human rights violations continue to be perpetrated on a massive scale in the country, as widely documented by the Commission of Inquiry also in their latest paper, with a disproportionate impact on women and girls.
In addition, he condemned the attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructures perpetrated in breach of International Humanitarian Law, as well as arbitrary detention, torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, and enforced disappearances, that are still widely perpetrated by all actors on the ground. He deplored that right to education is impeded for hundreds of thousands of children, and that sexual and gender-based violence continue unabated in Syria, urging all parties to immediately end these violations, in order to fight impunity and to facilitate national reconciliation.
Ambassador Grassi, while recalling that the only solution for the crisis in Syria is a political one, underlined the need to fight against impunity and hold accountable all the perpetrators of gross human rights violations. Lastly, he expressed Italy’s continuous support for the work of the Commission of Inquiry and the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) on Syria, also through allocating voluntary contributions, as their mandate is essential to ensure that crimes committed in the country do not go unpunished.
Read the full statement here.
