GENEVA, June 28, (Agencies): Kuwait has strongly denounced the “systematic human rights abuses” against Syrians and urged the international community to shoulder responsibility towards the plight of the Syrian people.

Kuwait strongly condemns blatant, wide-scale and systematic human rights abuses carried out by the Syrian regime against his people, Ambassador Dharar Abdulrazzaq Rezougi, Kuwait’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, said in a session on the situation in Syria at the Human Rights Council.

Violence and killing continue unabated across Syria and there is evidence that the government security and army forces are responsible for the grave human rights violations, including the shelling of civilian areas, opening fire on peaceful protesters as well as detaining, torturing and carrying out of summary executions against anti-regime activists, he said.

Efforts
Rezougi said that Kuwait has repeatedly called for unifying efforts to reach a peaceful solution for the crisis.

He, however, warned that the Syrian regime’s defiance and its insistence on violently repressing opposition threaten the efforts seeking a peaceful solution to the crisis.

Kuwait supports UN-Arab League Special Envoy Kofi Annan’s six-point plan to stop the bloodshed in Syria and meet the Syrian people’s legitimate aspirations, but the ongoing violence, including using heavy artillery against civilian areas, risks undermining any chance for a peaceful solution, Rezougi said.
Kuwait also urges the Syria regime to heed to international calls in accepting Annan’s plan and to take all necessary measures to bring to an end the bloodshed.

Rezougi told KUNA that there was almost a consensus among the OHCHR members on condemnations of the Syrian regime acts and support for Annan’s plan.

The Human Rights Council has taken up the human rights situation in Syria under its agenda item on human rights situations that require the Council’s attention.

It heard High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay present a report on Syria by the Secretary-General, and was briefed by Jean-Marie Guehenno, the Deputy Joint Special Envoy of the United Nations and the League of Arab States on Syria.

Dialogue
It then held an interactive dialogue with the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria.
Navi Pillay, High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the situation in Syria continued to deteriorate, regardless of the ceasefire agreement of 12 April 2012. She urged all the parties to immediately stop all forms of violence.
Pillay presented the report of the United Nations Secretary-General on the human rights situation in Syria.
Jean-Marie Guehenno, Deputy Joint Special Envoy of the United Nations and the League of Arab States, said the six-point plan was clearly not being implemented and hostilities had now surpassed levels seen before April 12.
Guehenno added that the human rights situation in Syria was inextricably linked to the political dimensions of the conflict.
“Syria was now engulfed by various types of violence, including sectarianism, with serious implications for the region. Amidst the insecurity, around 1.5 million people are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance,” he said.
Guehenno warned that the impact of the conflict on children was of particular concern. At the moment all sides appeared not to believe in the possibility of a political solution.
“Time was running out. Syria was spiralling into deeper and more destructive violence. The people of Syria desperately need the international community to come together and exercise its full influence before it was too late.” The representatives of OHCHR member states involved in an interactive debate over the situation in Syria.
Saudi Arabia said that the deteriorating human rights situation in Syria and the large number of victims in El-Houleh could not be accepted or justified. Bloodshed must be stopped and it was necessary for everyone to cooperate and to move quickly and give hope to the people of Syria that the situation would get better soon.

Qatar said that after reading the report, it seemed that Syrian history was no longer one of a great civilization, but was becoming one of bloodshed. Qatar strongly denounced violations of human rights in Syria.
Syria is not complying with measures put forth by the international community, despite its initial agreement. It had been clearly shown that killings, arbitrary detention, torture and sexual violence had been perpetrated by all sides. Syria had to ensure the fulfillment of its responsibilities towards its people.
The United Arab Emirates said that having listened to the presentation, it deplored the deterioration of the situation in Syria, which was due to the refusal of the authorities to cooperate with the Commission of Inquiry. It also deplored the lack of will on the part of the authorities to protect the innocent victims of the El-Houleh massacres, and highlighted the importance of bringing the perpetrators to justice.
It also called for the full implementation of the Joint Special Envoy’s plan and stressed the importance of the international community to play its role in ending the operation of the machinery of war.
Bombs
Twin bombs exploded outside the Palace of Justice in Damascus on Thursday as deadly violence raged across the country and Turkey deployed missile batteries along its volatile border with Syria.
On the political front, world powers were preparing for a crucial meeting on ways to end the conflict and to discuss a plan by peace envoy Kofi Annan for an interim government.
The meeting in Geneva, agreed only after wrangling between Moscow and Washington over the agenda and the guest list, will be attended by some regional governments but not by rival Middle East heavyweights Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Annan spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said delegates of countries attending the talks would gather in Geneva on Friday for a “preparatory meeting.”
Russia has already poured cold water on Saturday’s meeting, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying Moscow rejects Western pressure for the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad.
In central Damascus, three people were wounded when bombs blasted a car park outside the court complex, state media reported.
A police source told AFP that two magnetic bombs exploded in judges’ cars and that a third was being defused.
Elsewhere, violence killed at least 69 people, including 38 civilians, after one of the bloodiest days of the 15-month revolt left at least 149 dead on Wednesday, a watchdog said.
Thursday’s heaviest toll was in the northern Damascus suburb of Douma where 18 civilians, 12 from one family, were killed when troops clashed with rebel fighters, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The day’s death toll also included 23 soldiers and eight rebels, said the watchdog, adding that that regime forces backed by helicopters pounded several areas of the eastern city of Deir Ezzor.
More than 15,800 people have been killed since the uprising broke out in March 2011, including nearly 4,700 since April 12, when a UN-backed ceasefire was supposed to have taken effect, the Observatory says.
Turkey has sent missile batteries, tanks and troops to the border as a “security corridor” after Syria shot down a Turkish warplane last Friday, media reports said.
Military
There was no official confirmation, but state-run TRT television showed dozens of military vehicles reportedly heading for the border, in a convoy that included air defence systems.
About 30 military vehicles accompanied by a truck towing missile batteries left a base in the southeastern province of Hatay for the border, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) away, Milliyet newspaper reported.
The Turkish Phantom F-4 jet was downed by Syrian fire over the eastern Mediterranean in what Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said was a “heinous attack” over international waters.
Diplomats at the United Nations revealed on Wednesday that Annan is proposing setting up a transitional government to include representatives of both sides in the Syria conflict.
The proposed interim authority would exclude officials whose presence might jeopardise the transition “or undermine efforts to bring reconciliation,” according to a summary given by one UN diplomat.
“The language of Annan’s plan suggests that Assad could be excluded but also that certain opposition figures could be ruled out,” said another UN diplomat.
The Geneva meeting was agreed only after protracted wrangling between Moscow and Washington.
US officials had warned that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could stay away from the conference if transition from Assad’s rule was not on the agenda.
Russia also insists Iran should be part of the solution to Syria’s conflict.
“Iran is an influential player in this situation and to leave it out of the Geneva meeting, I believe, is a mistake,” Lavrov said on Thursday.
And Assad’s fate “must be decided within the framework of a Syrian dialogue by the Syrian people themselves” without foreign interference, he insisted.
Clinton, who will meet Lavrov in Saint Petersburg on Friday, rejected any idea that Annan was proposing a transition imposed from outside.
“In his transition document it is a Syrian-led transition, but you have to have a transition that complies with international standards on human rights, accountable governance, the rule of law,” she said.
The opposition Syrian National Council, meanwhile, said it would boycott any government if Assad stays.
SNC spokesman George Sabra told AFP the group’s position “remains that the opposition would not participate in any political project unless Bashar al-Assad is removed from power.”
Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood, an SNC member, criticised Annan’s plan in a statement saying forming a national unity government as violence continues “would be to delude ourselves and play the regime’s game.”