More than 100 rights groups urge Arab action on Syria

A coalition of 121 Arab and international rights groups on Sunday urged the Arab League to take action on Syria to prevent it from sliding into civil war, as the organisation prepared to meet in Cairo. "The Arab League can ramp up the diplomatic and economic pressure to help end the crackdown and prevent Syria from descending into civil war now," said Alice Jay, campaign director of Avaaz, a signatory of their joint statement. "For months, Syria’s brutal President (Bashar al-)Assad has waged war on his own people," Jay said, two days after the United Nations said the death toll in Syria has exceeded 3,000 since anti-regime protests broke out in mid-March. In the letter signed by 121 rights organisations from across the Arab world and abroad, activists called on the Arab League "to be on the right side of history" and fill the region's "leadership vacuum." They urged the League to step up diplomatic pressure on the Syrian regime by suspending its membership of the League, downgrading diplomatic missions in Damascus, and backing action at the UN Security Council. The statement came as Arab foreign ministers were to meet at League headquarters in Cairo to discuss the deadly crackdown on dissent in Syria at the request of the Gulf monarchies. It called on Arab leaders to isolate the Syrian regime economically "as long as the crackdown continues" and "to impose restrictive measures on persons and companies of the regime involved in the crackdown." The groups warned that international sanctions would be "limited in impact without pressure on Syria from similar measures in the region." Signatories included the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), AVAAZ, the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect and the Damascus Centre for Human Rights Studies.