A/HRC/37/72
put in place to ensure timely progress on pressing rights issues whose resolution will help
to ensure sustainable peace:
(a)
Immediately bring to an end all intentional and indiscriminate attacks on the
civilian population, including, but not limited to, hostage taking, disappearances, torture,
summary executions, sexual and gender-based violence and all acts of collective
punishment, in particular sieges.
(b)
Allow immediate and unconditional access to all places of detention by
independent monitors and, at a minimum, humanitarian organizations such as the
International Committee of the Red Cross. In doing so, end the practice of holding
detainees incommunicado or in secret places of detention and provide full lists of the names
of all those held in detention. This will allow the authorities to begin the process of
compiling the names of those missing or disappeared.
(c)
Establish a mechanism, as part of any negotiated agreement, to enable the
speedy release of all political prisoners and those held arbitrarily and begin that process
immediately upon the signing of the agreement. In the meantime, special attention should
be given to immediately releasing the most vulnerable detainees, including children,
women, the elderly and the disabled, while talks continue. These can be considered as
confidence-building measures and applied to all parties to the conflict.
(d)
Ensure that there are no pardons or amnesties for those responsible for
ordering or carrying out gross human rights violations and committing international crimes,
such as war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.
(e)
Ensure in any agreement that there is immediate and timely access and
provision of humanitarian assistance to all areas affected by the conflict, in close
collaboration with United Nations agencies present in the Syrian Arab Republic.
(f)
As soon as there is a cessation of hostilities, facilitate the process for
displaced Syrians and those who sought refuge outside the country to return in safety and
dignity, working closely with relevant United Nations agencies.
(g)
Enable the registration of births and give access to all concerned to gain or
regain their legal identity through simplified registration mechanisms at the local and
community levels, bearing in mind that an officially recognized identity, substantiated by a
birth certificate or other identity documents, is crucial for the realization of the most
fundamental rights.
(h)
Ensure access and freedom of movement throughout the country for Syrian
and international human rights monitors so that they can assess conditions, report on
compliance with commitments and assist in ensuring that rights safeguards and the rule of
law are upheld.
18.
The above principles are not merely aspirational. They are doable. The Commission
has regularly reported to the Human Rights Council about the network of checkpoints
established throughout government-controlled areas where Syrians have gone missing.
Arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, false charges in military tribunals, field courts
or antiterrorism courts have all been used as a means to keep tens of thousands of persons
in detention, often incommunicado and in conditions that defy description. Deaths resulting
from torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and summary executions in both
known and secret places of detention have been documented throughout the conflict.
Relatives of detainees rarely, if ever, receive information on their whereabouts, the reasons
for their incarceration or even their deaths. As a result, thousands of Syrian families have
no knowledge of whether their relatives are missing due to conflict, displacement,
detention, death or execution.
19.
Armed groups and terrorist organizations have also detained people, often with no
reason or rationale, save that they want to use them for bargaining purposes. Civilians,
including individuals with relatives serving in the armed forces of the Syrian Arab
Republic, have been taken hostage to be used in negotiations for the release of their
comrades in arms or their own relatives from situations of detention. Often, the captives
belong to religious minorities and are treated abominably, held in inhumane conditions or
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