UN expert: crippling US sanctions on Syria are illegal and hurting civilians

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Pushback with Aaron Maté

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4.7 • 594 Ratings

🗓️ 14 January 2021

⏱️ 35 minutes

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Summary

Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate Crippling US sanctions imposed under the Caesar Act are decimating war-ravaged Syrian civilians, are illegal, and should be lifted, the UN Special Rapporteur on sanctions says. An independent United Nations expert is calling on the US to lift its crippling sanctions on Syria. Under the Caesar Act, US sanctions explicitly target Syria’s reconstruction in the aftermath of a catastrophic 10-year war. Alena Douhan, the UN Special Rapporteur on the impact of sanctions, says that the US sanctions are illegal and depriving Syrian civilians of their basic needs. “People shouldn’t die, people shouldn’t suffer, and people shouldn’t fear whether they can survive after tomorrow, because they have neither medicine or food, because of the sanctions applied,” Douhan says. Guest: Alena F. Douhan, UN Special Rapporteur on sanctions, and a professor at Belarusian State University. Video/transcript: https://thegrayzone.com/2021/01/14/un-expert-crippling-us-sanctions-on-syria-are-illegal-and-hurting-civilians/

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Pushback. I'm Erin Mate.
0:06.6	In 2020, the U.S. imposed its harshest sanctions on Syria to date.
0:13.7	The Caesar sanctions explicitly target Syria's reconstruction, making rebuilding from 10 years of war close to impossible.
0:25.0	Well, now a top UN expert is calling for these sanctions to be lifted.
0:29.6	In a statement, the UN special rapporteur on sanctions said, quote,
0:34.7	the sanctions violate the human rights of the Syrian people whose country has
0:39.0	been destroyed by almost 10 years of ongoing conflict.
0:43.4	Elena F. Dohan joins me now.
0:45.2	She is the UN special rapporteur on sanctions and a professor at Belarusian State University.
0:51.5	Professor Dohan, welcome to pushback.
0:54.8	It's a pleasure.
0:56.4	So what prompted you to put out this statement?
1:00.6	Well, my intention was to bring attention to the point that imposition of unilateral sanctions
1:06.4	in the contemporary world is affecting human rights of those whose rights generally is announced
1:13.7	to seek to protect.
1:15.5	And as a result, the scope of human rights violated by application not only of Caesar Act sanctions,
1:21.9	but by many other types of sanctions.
1:24.4	And for example, in the situation of Syria, we can't identify the impact of the
1:29.7	Caesar Act sanctions only because there is a scope of them applied today. So the impact of these
1:35.7	sanctions is enormous, both to Syria and as well as on any other states. It's necessary to take
1:43.2	into account today that the very notion of unilateral
1:46.3	sanctions we hear about every day is in expanding a lot. We used to hear about the idea of targeted
	...

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