Syria – the search for justice

Sir, – Sally Hayden’s article (Opinion & Analysis, September 10th) showed in a very moving way, through an interview with Fadwa Mahmoud, whose husband and son were disappeared by the Assad regime 10 years ago, the agony endured every day by millions of Syrians who have loved ones, relatives and friends among the more than 100,000 disappeared in Syria.

The recent report by the UN Secretary General António Guterres, which backed years of campaigning by Fadwa and her organisation Families for Freedom and many others calling for a dedicated mechanism to find out what happened to Syria’s disappeared, offers at least some hope. Ireland, as she noted, can also play a key role when this report comes to a vote soon in the UN General Assembly.

But Ireland could play a bigger role in securing accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria and elsewhere, including Ukraine.

This could be done by Ireland adopting the model to facilitate universal jurisdiction, like Germany, which allows those seeking justice for crimes against humanity committed anywhere access to the Irish courts, even though both the victims and perpetrators are not Irish citizens.

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This would mean Syrians and Ukrainians could bring cases here against those who have committed serious crimes like torture, forcible disappearances and extra-judicial killing.

In Germany, victims or victims families can secure international arrest warrants against those alleged to have committed these serious crimes but they must be brought before a court to secure prosecution.

In making Bringing Assad to Justice, we show how Syrians in Germany are using universal jurisdiction because the International Criminal Court was denied to them because Russia vetoed with China the referral of Syria to the court.

Adoption of the German model opens the door to a future of real accountability and ending impunity where all war criminals can be sure through international arrest warrants circulating and being enforced there would be no hiding places for those who have committed serious atrocities. – Yours, etc,

RONAN TYNAN,

(Director,

Bringing Assad

to Justice),

Esperanza Productions,

East Wall,

Dublin 3.