People gathered at the city center of the opposition-held northwestern Idlib region on Sunday to protest against the chemical attack by the Bashar Assad regime in Syria on Aug. 21, 2013, in which more than 1,400 civilians died in the eastern Ghouta region of the capital Damascus.
Protestors carried banners with messages written in Arabic and English: "We will not let the torch of justice go out," "We raise our voices on behalf of the victims and demand justice for them," "The massacres committed by the Assad regime with chemical weapons are not only against the victims but against all humanity" and "The souls of the victims are still waiting for justice."
Firas Halife, one of the participants in the demonstration, told Anadolu Agency (AA) that they lit candles to keep the memory of the Assad regime's chemical massacre on Aug. 21, 2013, in the eastern Ghouta region.
According to the data of the Syrian Human Rights Network (SHRN), more than 1100 of those killed in the attack by the Assad regime were women and children, and 5,000 civilians were affected by poison gas, Halife said.
"Civilians were killed while they were sleeping. We want the perpetrators behind the massacre to be punished. It is not possible to forget the murderers. It is on the agenda until they are punished. We will keep holding these protests."
Ismail Abdullah, one of the participants in the demonstration, said that they organized a demonstration so that the voices of the families of the survivors of eastern Ghouta and all chemical weapons massacres could be heard.
Abdullah said that they are seeking justice by raising their voices, "We demand decisive steps from the international community."
After the massacre, eastern Ghouta became the region where the Bashar Assad regime implemented the most strict blockade and used almost all weapons in 2018.
The opposition in the region had to evacuate eastern Ghouta in April 2018 as a result of the forced agreement with the Assad regime and Russia.
Civilians who emerged from the five-year siege are currently struggling to survive in the areas under the control of the opposition in the north of the country.
According to the report of the SHRN, the Assad regime carried out 217 chemical weapons attacks on the settlements under the control of the opposition after the start of the civil war in Syria.
Salim al-Muslat, the National Coalition for Syrian Opposition and Revolutionary Forces (SMDK) chair, also called on the United Nations to hold the Bashar Assad regime accountable for the attack. In his speech published on the official accounts of SMDK, al-Muslat accused the international community of being silent about the regime's chemical weapons attacks.
He stated that the international community could not give serious and concrete reactions to the eastern Ghouta massacre.
"This situation paved the way for the regime to commit massacres in various regions of Syria. Weapons prohibited by international law were used against civilians in these massacres. Today, the Assad regime and its allies still continue their massacres."
Al-Muslat argued that the Assad regime violated the U.N.'s decision to use banned weapons in Syria 2,810 times and demanded that the U.N. take responsibility and hold the Assad regime accountable for its crimes.
The head of SMDK emphasized that the political transition process in Syria should be implemented within a certain calendar within the framework of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 2254.
'No progress'
Meanwhile, the U.N. High Representative for Disarmament, Izumi Nakamitsu, declared that "no progress has been made" in the dossier of the chemical weapons program in Syria.
Speaking at the UNSC session on chemical weapons in Syria at the U.N. Headquarters in New York, Nakamitsu expressed his regret that the 25th round of consultations in Damascus could not be held after the "Syrian authorities" did not issue entry visas each time to the chief expert of the Technical Secretariat of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
"We have not made any progress in this regard. I urge the Syrian government to cooperate with the Technical Secretariat and facilitate arrangements for weapons deployment, as outlined in Article VII, paragraph 7 of the Chemical Weapons Convention."
"Using chemical weapons is a serious violation of international law and an insult to our common human values. We must be vigilant to ensure that these terrible weapons are never used again and are destroyed everywhere, not just in Syria." the high representative stated that the U.N. is determined to work with all member states to bring those who use these weapons to account.
Nakamitsu also shared the information that the Syrian regime did not cooperate with discovering a chemical substance found in Barzeh facilities in November 2018.
The Syrian regime joined the OPCW on Sept. 13, 2013, and the same month, the UNSC adopted Resolution 2118 on Syria's chemical weapons and the massacre it carried out in eastern Ghouta a month before it joined the OPCW.
With the decision taken at the OPCW Meeting of States Parties on April 21, 2021, some membership rights of this country were suspended after it was determined that Bashar Assad regime forces used chemical weapons in al-Lataminah in March 2017 and Saraqib in February 2018.