At least 14 killed in Syria on Human Rights Day

SYRIA: World powers piled pressure on Syria to let in observers as activists reported at least 14 civilians killed by security forces on Saturday’s anniversary of International Human Rights Day.

“The world celebrates human rights as human rights are being violated in Syria,” the opposition Syrian Revolution 2011 said in a message posted on its Facebook page. In Oslo, the Nobel Committee head said at the 2011 Peace Prize awards ceremony that this year’s award to Yemeni activist Tawakkol Karman served as a warning to dictators in Arab countries such as Syria and Yemen.

“The leaders in Yemen and Syria who murder their people to retain their own power should take note of the following: mankind’s quest for freedom and human rights can never stop,” Thorbjoern Jagland said. UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay has said more than 4,000 people have been killed in a government crackdown on dissent in Syria since the anti-regime protest movement broke out in March.

Pillay is to brief the UN Security Council on Syria and the wider Middle East at a meeting on Monday.

President Bashar al-Assad refuses to let investigators from two UN human rights inquiries enter Syria and is resisting Arab League calls to accept monitors despite being hit by regional sanctions on top of US and EU measures. Syria wants the bloc to lift sanctions in return for allowing in observers.

A league official said Arab foreign ministers will hold an emergency session on Syria by the end of the week in Cairo, following a smaller meeting of a ministerial task force.

AFP