Irish Times.


THE UNITED Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said yesterday she was appalled by the violence against civilians in Homs and called for urgent international action.

Navi Pillay also implicitly criticised Russia and China for vetoing an Arab and western move in the UN Security Council to get Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to quit.

"I am appalled by the Syrian government's wilful assault on the city of Homs, and its use of artillery and other heavy weaponry in what appear to be indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas in the city," Ms Pillay said in a statement. Ms Pillay, a former South African high court judge, said it was extremely urgent "for the international community to cut through the politics and take effective action to protect the civilian population".

She said the "virtual carte blanche" granted to Syria by the veto of the UN resolution "betrays the spirit and the word" of a 2005 global accord on collective action to protect civilians when their government was failing to do so.

Her statement came as both Russia and China continued to defend their stance. In Moscow, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said it was "not really the international community's business" to try, as he put it, to determine the outcome of a national dialogue between government and opposition in Syria.



China, meanwhile, hit back at its critics, notably British foreign secretary William Hague. It said his criticism of Beijing's veto was extremely irresponsible.