The Syrian Network: The presidential elections that the Assad regime intends to hold undermine the political process
The Syrian Network for Human Rights said in its report, today, Monday, that the presidential elections that the Assad regime intends to hold unilaterally are illegal and undermine the political process and are being carried out by force of the security services.
The report pointed out that the Assad regime violates Security Council Resolution 2118 and the Geneva Declaration by announcing the holding of presidential elections next May 2021, and violating, in addition to them, the Security Council resolution, in which it established a clear sequential path for the political transition process.
The report stated that these elections come after the joint investigation mechanism established by the Security Council in August / 2015 confirmed the responsibility of the Assad regime three times for the use of chemical weapons, and the investigation and liability determination mechanism of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons proved the responsibility of the Assad regime for four chemical attacks.
According to the report, the Assad regime has never stopped committing horrific violations against Syrians. Since the sham elections, it has continued to commit multiple types of violations, some of which, according to the reports of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry, amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The report cited the outcome of the most prominent of those violations committed by the Assad regime from the previous mock presidential elections in June 2014 until April 2021, according to the network’s database, where 47,967 civilians were killed, including 8762 children and 5309 women, and at least 58,574 people, including 1986 children and 4,693 women still.
Under arbitrary detention or enforced disappearance in the detention centers of the Assad regime.
The report indicated that at least 44,652 people, including 1827 children and 3516 women, are still subjected to enforced disappearance. The report also records the killing of at least 4,901 people, including 84 children and 52 women, who died due to torture in the detention centers of the Assad regime.
According to the report, the failure of the international community, including the UN Security Council, helped not achieve any serious progress in the political transition towards democracy and human rights in Syria, and this failure, with complete impunity, helped the Assad regime continue to challenge the international community and hold presidential elections unilaterally.
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The report called on the UN envoy, Gere Pedersen, and the countries sponsoring the peace process in Geneva to condemn the holding of unilateral presidential elections, to declare their refusal to recognize their results, to work to commit all parties to the path of a political solution in accordance with the relevant Security Council resolutions, and to set a specific timetable for this to happen.
The report recommends declaring that those involved in horrific crimes such as crimes against humanity have no role in the future of Syria, and emphasizing the rejection of any qualification for them because this is a fueling of the conflict and not a solution to it.
The report calls on the UN Security Council to issue a resolution clarifying the unilateral violation of the presidential elections of its decisions related to the political process, and work to implement Resolution 2254 as soon as possible.
