Petition of Demands to the Canadian Government to Support the Syrian Peoples Uprising for Freedom and Dignity

To all the Honorable members of the Canadian Parliament, To the Honorable Prime Minister The 15th of March 2011 marked the beginning of the Syrian uprising when women and men across the country and, from all walks of life, responded to a call to participate in peaceful demonstrations demanding basic rights: freedom, dignity and democracy. The regime's response was, and continues to be, brutal. It has used the national army, the security services, and armed paramilitary troops in an attempt to crush the uprising. It has resorted to practices such as killing, kidnapping, arbitrary detention, torture and rape. According to the Syrian observatory for human rights, the death toll has so far reached 8500 people, including women, children and the elderly. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has urged the Security Council to refer the Syrian regime to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. Despite the brutal crackdown, the Syrian people continue courageously, day after day, to resist the bloody repression, and to demand the fall of the dictatorial regime. For one year, the United Nations and the Arab League have failed to take adequate measures to protect the civilian population. Insufficient pressure is being brought to bear on Security-Council members Russia and China who continue to support the Syrian regime by twice veto-ing resolutions aimed at settling the crisis. Instead, the regime used the double vetoes as a green light to escalate its violent crackdown, to a point where Syrians today feel abandoned by everyone. As Canadians, Syrians and world citizens who are concerned not only about the safety of the protesters but about the danger that continued dictatorship violence will plunge the country into irreparable civil divisions, we demand from the Canadian government to act swiftly to protect Syrian civilians. We ask: • Canada to be part of a UN observer mission and peacekeeping forces to protect the civilian population. • Canada to be part of a UN mission to ensure that humanitarian relief arrives unhindered to those in need inside Syria. • Canada to cut all diplomatic ties with the Assad regime by closing the Syrian embassy in Ottawa. • Canada to recognize the Syrian National Council as the representative of the Syrian people. • Canada to expedite immigration, refugee, sponsorship applications of Syrians to Canada and to put a moratorium on deportations to Syria. Low-level diplomatic and economic sanctions have not been able to protect Syrians from the massacres and gross human rights abuses of the Assad regime. The time has come for Canada and the international community to change its strategy with regards to the regime or Syria will be heading to a humanitarian catastrophe on par with the 1994 Rwandan genocide.