17/10/2011

The United States criticizes Syria for rejecting recommendations because they were made by them

On 11 October, the United States took the floor during the adoption of Syria's UPR Working Group report to regret that recommendations were either accepted or rejected by the delegation depending of which country made them.

In the Report of Working Group of Syria's review, recommendations are clustered into six categories: those which enjoy the support of the delegation, those which are already implemented, those which are in the process of implementation, those to which the delegation will respond at the 19th Human Rights Council session in March 2012, those which do not enjoy its support and those which do not enjoy its support because they are "based on incorrect assumption or premises".

The fifth category concerning the rejected recommendations, paragraph 112, contains four recommendations made by the United States. Their delegate drew to the Working Group's attention that two of them, recommendations n°112.10 on reprisals against peaceful protesters, political activists and their families and n°112.14 on releasing prisoners of conscience, were very similar to recommendations made notably by Poland and the United Kingdom and contained in the category of accepted recommendations and already implemented (§ 109). He concluded that these recommendations were rejected because they were made by the United States and then denounced the politicization by the Syrian delegation of the UPR process.