Syria invited to Arab League meeting, despite war crimes
Deutsche Welle
23-05-14 10:50
Syria will attend the upcoming meeting of the Arab League, hosted by Saudi Arabia on May 19, following a decision made in Cairo earlier this month to allow the country back into the 22-member group. Syria was suspended from the body in 2011 after its peaceful revolution turned into war. The decision comes as Arab League members start to rebuild connections with the authoritarian Assad regime, in the hope of diminishing Iran’s influence. But human rights groups and Syrian civil society organizations have accused the organization of welcoming back a government that has committed numerous human rights abuses and war crimes, including the use of chemical weapons. The Syrian Network for Human Rights claims that between December 2012 and November 2022, the Syrian government carried out 217 chemical weapons attacks on its opponents, killing at least 1,500 people, among them 205 children and 250 women, and injuring a further 12,000 people. The country’s drug trade, including the production of the highly addictive Captagon, is thought to be worth between $3bn and $5bn.