Thursday, December 15, 2016

SYRIA: URGE YOUR SENATORS TO SUPPORT THE CAESAR SYRIA CIVILIAN PROTECTION ACT OF 2016

This is a civic action we can take in regard to the civil war in Syria, and the horrific attacks on Syrian civilians.

The Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2016 (H. R. 5732) passed the House of Representatives, and has now been referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 

Here is a link to the membership of the Senate Foreign Relations committee. If a Senator from your state is on the committee, call her/him and say that you support, and urge the Senator to support passage of the Caesar Bill, HR 5732. 

If you live in a state that does not have a member on the committee, call your senator anyway and ask him/her to encourage their colleagues on the Foreign Relations Committee to support the bill. 

The full text of the bill is here. Passage of the bill will result in a variety of sanctions against Syria and it's partners-in-crime Russia and Iran. 

Here is some info about the bill:

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) Over 14,000,000 Syrians have become refugees or internally displaced persons over the last 5 years.
(2) The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has reported that since 2012, over 60,000 Syrians, including children, have died in Syrian prisons.
(3) In July 2014, the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives heard testimony from a former Syrian military photographer, alias “Caesar”, who fled Syria and smuggled out thousands of photos of tortured bodies. In testimony, Caesar said, “I have seen horrendous pictures of bodies of people who had tremendous amounts of torture, deep wounds and burns and strangulation.”.
(4) In a June 16, 2015, hearing of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives, United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Samantha Power, testified that there are alarming and grave reports that the Assad regime has been turning chlorine into a chemical weapon, and on June 16, 2015, Secretary of State John Kerry stated that he was “absolutely certain” that the Assad regime has used chlorine against his people.
(5) The Assad regime has repeatedly blocked civilian access to or diverted humanitarian assistance, including medical supplies, to besieged and hard-to-reach areas, in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

(6) The course of the Syrian transition and its future leadership may depend on what the United States and its partners do now to save Syrian lives, alleviate suffering, and help Syrians determine their own future.
SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS.
It is the sense of Congress that—
(1) Bashar al-Assad’s murderous actions against the people of Syria have caused the deaths of more than 400,000 civilians, led to the destruction of more than 50 percent of Syria’s critical infrastructure, and forced the displacement of more than 14,000,000 people, precipitating the worst humanitarian crisis in more than 60 years;
(2) international actions to date have been insufficient in protecting vulnerable populations from being attacked by uniformed and irregular forces, including Hezbollah, associated with the Assad regime, on land and from the air, through the use of barrel bombs, chemical weapons, mass starvation campaigns, industrial-scale torture and execution of political dissidents, sniper attacks on pregnant women, and the deliberate targeting of medical facilities, schools, residential areas, and community gathering places, including markets;
(3) Assad’s use of chemical weapons, including chlorine, against the Syrian people violates the Chemical Weapons Convention; and
(4) Assad’s continued claim of leadership and actions in Syria are a rallying point for the extremist ideology of the Islamic State, Jabhat al-Nusra, and other terrorist organizations.
SEC. 4. STATEMENT OF POLICY.
It is the policy of the United States that all diplomatic and coercive economic means should be utilized to compel the government of Bashir al-Assad to immediately halt the wholesale slaughter of the Syrian people and actively work towards transition to a democratic government in Syria, existing in peace and security with its neighbors.

Thanks everyone.
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