Syria Solidarity Movement UK • www.syriauk.org • [email protected] • @SyriaUK

In this UK election, let’s talk about Syria. For a peaceful, democratic Syria, a Syria without Assad and a Syria without ISIS, we support the calls by Planet Syria activists and Syria Civil Defence rescue volunteers for action to stop the violence. More than half of Syria’s people have been displaced. Millions have fled the country. Over 200,000 people have been killed. Syrians have been tortured, shot, bombed, starved, and gassed. Lend your voice to demand action. We cannot let the world turn its back on Syria. Syrian refugees welcome here There are over 4 million Syrian refugees, 94% of them in Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt. The UK government has accepted only 143 of the most vulnerable Syrian refugees for resettlement, while at the same time they have pulled out of EU rescue efforts in the Mediterranean. We call on the UK government to:

• Expand the Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme • Contribute to expanding Operation Triton for Mediterranean rescue • Work with the EU to allow safe routes for Syrians entering Europe

A No-Fly Zone for Syria We call on UN Security Council permanent members UK, France, and USA, to: • Protect Civilians • Enforce UN Security Council Resolution 2139 • Stop Assad’s air attacks – Syria needs a No-Fly Zone

Photo: Spring in Kafranbel, 2015

A manifesto for Syria

Syrian refugees welcome here

Syria Solidarity Movement UK • www.syriauk.org • [email protected] • @SyriaUK

There are over 4 million Syrian refugees, 94% of them in Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, and Egypt. The UK government has accepted only 143 of the most vulnerable Syrian refugees for resettlement, while at the same time they have pulled out of EU rescue efforts in the Mediterranean. We call on the UK government to: • Expand the Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme Announced in January 2014 as a special programme for Syrians, the scheme had admitted as few as 143 refugees up to February of this year. Elsewhere in Europe, Norway has pledged to resettle 2,500 Syrian refugees, Sweden has pledged to resettle 2,700, and Germany has pledged to resettle 30,000. Britain can do better. • Contribute to expanding Operation Triton for Mediterranean rescue The UK needs to join Operation Triton, the European patrol force for the Mediterranean, so that it can be expanded and its role shifted from border control and surveillance to saving migrants’ lives. The UN recorded the deaths of at least 3,419 people trying to flee across the Mediterranean last year. The rate of deaths is already much higher this year. António Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, has said “Europe must step up its capacity to save lives” or “thousands more, including many, many Syrians, will perish.” • Work with the EU to allow safe routes for Syrians entering Europe The Dublin Regulation, under which asylum seekers must seek asylum in the first country they enter, puts an excessive burden on first port of entry states, and creates extra burdens for refugees as they are arbitrarily restricted in their choice of asylum and unable to move to locations where they may have family, friends or relevant language skills. The Dublin rules have outlived their usefulness, and need review in light of the unprecedented numbers fleeing Syria in what is the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War. Safe routes measures should include such things as speedy processing of visas for family members, students, and other non asylum routes; opening the embassies to applications for asylum; an EU wide declaration of emergency humanitarian access. Lebanon Jordan and Turkey have been generous; now it is time that Europe played its part in hosting some of the millions of Syrian refugees. That can be accomplished only by Europe-wide planning and cooperation.

Photo: Spring in Kafranbel, 2015

A manifesto for Syria

The causes of the refugee disaster Many of Syria’s refugees have fled ISIS. Many more have fled regime violence. In particular, the regime’s campaigns of air and artillery bombardment against civilian neighbourhoods are clearly designed to drive people from their homes. Angelina Jolie, special envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, wrote recently that “only an end to the war in Syria will begin to turn the tide on these problems. Without that, we are just tinkering at the edges.” Aid cannot limit the violence. Diplomacy alone cannot end it, as multiple failures over these past years have shown. To turn the tide, we need a broader spectrum of options. Links UNHCR: Syria Regional Refugee Response http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/regional.php Over 3.8 million Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries, and 217,000 in Europe.

António Guterres, UNHCR, on Syria http://www.unhcr.org/54ef20579.html Remarks by António Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, to the UN Security Council, 26 February 2015. Why Syrian Refugees Risk the ‘Journey of Death’ to Europe http://www.thenation.com/article/197833/why-syrian-refugees-risk-journey-death-europe# By Priyanka Motaparthy, The Nation, 11 February 2015.

Untold Stories of Syria’s Most Vulnerable Refugees in New Amnesty Report http://www.amnestyusa.org/research/reports/untold-stories-of-syria-s-most-vulnerablerefugees-in-new-amnesty-report Amnesty International, 3 February 2015. From Syria to Sweden, with love https://www.amnesty.org/en/articles/blogs/2015/02/from-syria-to-sweden-with-love/ One Syrian refugee family’s warm welcome in Sweden shows what a difference richer countries can make by giving some of the world’s most vulnerable people a lifeline. Migrants can’t be left to die in the seas of Europe http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/15/migrants-cant-be-left-to-diein-the-seas-of-europe Ending the Mare Nostrum search-and-rescue operation has not stopped desperate people from attempting this perilous journey. By Patrick Kingsley, The Guardian, 15 April 2015.

Syria Solidarity Movement UK • www.syriauk.org • [email protected] • @SyriaUK

A No-Fly Zone for Syria Syria Solidarity Movement UK • www.syriauk.org • [email protected] • @SyriaUK

We call on UN Security Council permanent members UK, France, and USA, to: • Protect Civilians • Enforce UN Security Council Resolution 2139 • Stop Assad’s air attacks – Syria needs a No-Fly Zone

Since March 2011, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed. According to the Violations Documentation Center in Syria’s records, at least 16,000 of those killed were killed by regime air attacks dropping conventional bombs, barrel bombs, and chlorine chemical weapons. Many thousands more, adults and children, have been maimed. As many as 95% of those killed in regime air attacks have been civilians. Over half of the women and children killed last year were victims of regime air attacks, according to Violations Documentation Center in Syria’s records. In February 2014, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 2139 which included the demand “that all parties immediately cease all attacks against civilians, as well as the indiscriminate employment of weapons in populated areas, including shelling and aerial bombardment, such as the use of barrel bombs, and methods of warfare which are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering…” Resolution 2139 closed with the Security Council expressing “its intent to take further steps in the case of non-compliance,” but since then no action has been taken to stop the air attacks. Using satellite imagery, Human Rights Watch have identified at least 450 distinct major damage sites from barrel bombs in 10 towns and villages in Daraa and over 1,000 in Aleppo, all in the year since Resolution 2139 was passed. According to figures released by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, more civilians were killed by barrel bombs in the year since Resolution 2139 than were killed by them before Resolution 2139. In the absence of further steps by the UN Security Council as a whole, and with permanent member Russia both arming Syria’s air force and also blocking collective Security Council action, individual states enjoying the privilege of permanent membership of the Security Council must take responsibility: specifically France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These three states, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, have the proven ability to stop the Assad regime’s air attacks against civilians almost immediately. Whether individually or collectively, as an exceptional measure in support of purposes laid down by the UN Security Council in Resolution 2139, they must act to stop this slaughter.

Photo: Spring in Kafranbel, 2015

A manifesto for Syria

Such action to protect civilians would be legal according to the criteria used by the UK and NATO in the 1999 Kosovo intervention. It would also be practical: By issuing an ultimatum to deter further attacks, and by responding to any further attacks with planned strikes against regime air bases launched from beyond the range of Syrian air defences, Resolution 2139’s ban on barrel bombing could be enforced without any need to fly costly and risky interception patrols in Syrian airspace, and with low risk to both air crews and civilians on the ground. Amongst those calling for a No-Fly Zone are Syria Civil Defence, also known as The White Helmets. They have been joined by a coalition of non-violent activists united in the Planet Syria campaign who are calling for an end to barrel bombing, if necessary by means of a No-Fly Zone, as an essential requirement to enable meaningful peace talks. Syrians first called for a No-Fly Zone in October 2011. Today that call needs our solidarity and support more than ever. It is long past time for action to stem the violence, to protect civilians, to save lives.

Photo: Demonstration calling for No-Fly Zone, Kafranbel, Syria, 21 March 2015.

Links Use of Barrel Bombs a Year After Security Council Resolution 2139 http://sn4hr.org/wp-content/pdf/english/Barrel_Bombs_2015_en.pdf Syrian Network For Human Rights report, 24 February 2015.

Syria: New Spate of Barrel Bomb Attacks http://www.hrw.org/news/2015/02/24/syria-new-spate-barrel-bomb-attacks Human Rights Watch report, 24 February 2015.

Stop the ‘barrel bombs’ in Syria http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/stop-the-barrel-bombs-the-deadliest-weaponsin-syrias-civil-war/2015/03/27/c983d024-cf4e-11e4-8a46-b1dc9be5a8ff_story.html Raed al Saleh, head of Syria Civil Defence, writing in the Washington Post, 27 March 2015. Whoever Saves a Life https://medium.com/matter/whoever-saves-a-life-1aaea20b782 A report on Syria Civil Defence, aka the White Helmets, by Matthieu Aikins, photographs and video by Sebastiano Tomada, 14 September 2014. Syria unrest: Protesters call for no-fly zone http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15503588 BBC News report from October 2011 on protests calling for a no-fly zone.

Syria Solidarity Movement UK • www.syriauk.org • [email protected] • @SyriaUK