The Observer view on bringing Assad to justice after a decade of war in Syria | Observer editorial

An international tribunal is the best way to deliver a reckoning for the dictator’s devastation he has wrought on his country

He turned his country into a graveyard. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, including 25,000 children. Millions more have been forced to flee. Terrible crimes – war crimes, crimes against humanity, widespread torture, indiscriminate bombing, chemical attacks – have been committed in his name, and continue to this day. Syria lies in ruins. So why, 10 years after the war began, is Bashar al-Assad still in power?

It’s a question with many answers, which boil down to one: inertia. Syria’s dictator-president has survived this long because the international community has allowed it. The UN’s independent international commission of inquiry has produced dozens of damning reports since 2011. Its latest records how tens of thousands of civilians have been “forcibly disappeared” by the regime, or subjected to “torture, sexual violence or death in detention”.

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source https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/21/the-observer-view-on-bringing-assad-to-justice-after-a-decade-of-war-in-syria

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