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The Netherlands is preparing to file a lawsuit against Syria before the International Court of Justice, with the aim of holding the regime of President Bashar al-Assad accountable. For his human rights violations, which include torture and the use of chemical weapons.
Dutch Foreign Minister Steve Block said in a letter to Parliament on Friday that the Netherlands has decided to hold Syria responsible “under international law for serious human rights violations, especially torture.”
The chancellor’s letter cited Damascus’s commitment to uphold the United Nations Convention against Torture, which Syria signed in 2004.
In the message, the minister said: “The Assad regime has committed horrible crimes over and over again. The evidence is overwhelming … There must be consequences … Large numbers of Syrians have been tortured, killed, forcibly disappeared and attacked with poison gas, or they have lost everything, while fleeing alive. “
Syria was informed of the legal process that precedes the possibility of referring the case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which is competent to resolve disputes between states.
The Netherlands decided to take that step after Russia obstructed various efforts in the UN Security Council to refer human rights violations in Syria to the International Criminal Court, which is trying people accused of war crimes, based in The Hague.
The Netherlands says the war that has lasted about 10 years in Syria has claimed at least 200,000 lives, while 100,000 remain missing and 5.5 million have been forced to flee to neighboring countries.
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