UN rights body condemns IS killings

The UN Human Rights Council on Thursday condemned the campaign of killings and hostage-taking being carried out in Syria by the Islamic State group and other fighters.

Nations on the world body’s top human rights forum cast 32 votes in favour of a resolution pushed notably by Britain and Saudi Arabia which spotlighted a range of abuses including the actions of IS.

“Such acts may amount to crimes against humanity,” the resolution said.

The resolution also condemned the actions of Syrian regime forces, in particular pro-government militias.

It called on all parties to the conflict to put an end to arbitrary detention of Syrian and foreign civilians.

In addition, it condemned what it said was the generalised use of sexual violence in government detention centres, as well as torture and other ill-treatment of children by regime forces.

It also slammed the use of chemical weapons, noting that a UN probe had found repeated use of chlorine gas by the regime.

And it urged greater efforts to bring to justice to all human rights violators, whether in national or international courts.

The UN Security Council is the only body empowered to call in the International Criminal Court to deal with the Syria crisis, and Western efforts there have been blocked by staunch Damascus ally Russia.

Syria’s diplomats at the Human Rights Council slammed the resolution as “selective and unbalanced”.

Five countries on the 47-nation council, whose membership rotavates, opposed the resolution: Algeria, China, Cuba, Russia and Venezuela.

Ten members opted to abstain.