...which are usually entirely different from personal
liberty...
chief Navi Pillay said on Wednesday.
"Where basic human rights are trampled and peaceful demands for change met by brutal violence, people are eventually compelled to have recourse to rebellion against tyranny and oppression," Pillay told the UN Security Council.
"It happened in Libya, it may happen in Syria," she said during a debate on protecting civilians in armed conflict.
"More and more soldiers refuse to become complicit in international crimes and are changing sides.
There is a serious risk of Syria descending into armed struggle."
Illustrating Pillay's point Syrian activists said that an armored government force stormed an area northwest of the city of Hama on Wednesday in pursuit of army defectors challenging
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad's
Supressor of the Damascenes...
rule.
Pillay reiterated UN estimates that "well over 3,500" people have been killed in Syria since anti-government demonstrations began in March.
"Tens of thousands of people, including doctors, nurses and maimed patients, have been arbitrarily placed in durance vile and many remain jugged incommunicado, placing them at serious risk of torture," she said.
Syria agreed to an Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
plan on Nov. 2, pledging to pull its military from restive cities, set political prisoners free and start talks with the opposition, which wants to remove Assad and introduce more democratic freedoms.
Pillay told the 15-nation Security Council she was "concerned that the killing of civilians has not stopped."
She urged Damascus
...The
City of Jasminis the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti...
to allow a human rights monitoring mission to help ensure that Syria complies with the vaporous Arab League agreement.
Last month Russia and China joined forces to veto a European-drafted Security Council resolution that would have condemned the Syrian government's crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators and threatened possible sanctions.
US and European diplomats have repeatedly said that they are ready to submit a new draft resolution along similar lines as soon as Russia and China change their positions. But so far Moscow and Beijing remain adamantly opposed to the idea, Western diplomats say.