Meeting of the Subcommittee on Human Rights in association with the Delegation for relations with the Mashreq countries on human rights in Syria on the occasion of the 4th anniversary of the uprising, in the EP in Brussels. Statements by Yassin HADJ SALEH, Human Rights militant, Pierre-Christophe CHATZISAVAS , EEAS, Mohammed A. Atassi , Syrian oppositionist and film-maker, Elena VALENCIANO (S&D, ES), Pier Antonio PANZERI (S&D, IT), Andrzej GRZYB (EPP, PL), F. E. Youkhana, Syrian oppsitonist, Catholic priest Salma KAHALE, Activist, Executive Director of NGO "Dawlaty" Marisa MATIAS (GUE/NGL, PT), President of the Delegation for relations with the Mashreq countries (DMAS)

Brussels

exchange of views

EU - Syria (T)

Subcommittee on Human Rights

respect for human rights in the world (T)

GRZYB, Andrzej (EPP, PL)

VALENCIANO, Elena (S&D, ES)

PANZERI, Pier Antonio (S&D, IT)

MATIAS, Marisa (The Left, PT)

Exchange of views on human rights in Syria on the occasion of the 4th anniversary of the uprising: extracts from the meeting

External view of the European Parliament, Brussels.

SOUNDBITE (English), Yassin HADJ SALEH, Human Rights militant, spent 16 years in prison under Assad, "We have, in my opinion, two fascist groups. Fascists with a neck tie, Bashar El Assad and his clique, and fascists with long beards, like Baghdadi others."

SOUNDBITE (French), Mohammed A. Atassi, Syrian oppositionist and film-maker , "We have seen that there are MEPs and European politicians that are going back to Syria to try and reestablish contacts with Bashar El Assad and so to forget about Human Rights and democracy in Syria."

SOUNDBITE (English), Pierre-Christophe CHATZISAVAS , EEAS, "The Assad regime cannot be a partner in the fight against DAESH."

SOUNDBITE (French), Mohammed A. Atassi , Syrian oppositionist and film-maker, "Suddenly, there's a collective consciousness, political and in the media, that has awaken because of the 'boat people', people that sail throw the sea - there are many Syrians among them-. And the reason is that, finally, they have arrived at our beaches, where we spend our holidays, where we sunbathe but, in reality, these people will die in their country if they don't die in yours, so you don't need to wait for them to come to you to do something about it."

SOUNDBITE (French), Mohammed A. Atassi, Syrian oppositionist and film-maker, "Razan Zaitouneh is the Sakharov prize holder of the European Parliament, she's a Human Rights activist, she's a lawyer, she's a great figure of the peaceful, democratic movements in Syria. Razan has been kidnapped for two years, toghether with Samira Khalil, by islamists in Ruttah. Nothing has been done about it at the European Parliament."

SOUNDBITE (French), Elena VALENCIANO (S&amp;D, ES), President of DROI Committe (Human Rights), "I can assure you that, indeed, we did made a campaign for Mr. Razan Zaitouneh, we will show it to you afterwards, I..." (she's interrupted)

SOUNDBITE (French), Mohammed A. Atassi , Syrian oppositionist and film-maker, (interrupts) "That's a slip, sorry, Madamme, to have to interrupt you, its Madamme Razan Zaitouneh. It's a woman, she's secular, wears no veil, she has blue eyes".

SOUNDBITE (French), Elena VALENCIANO (S&amp;D, ES), ), President of DROI Committe (Human Rights), "Later, indeed, when she was kidnapped, we did conduct a campaign, I wasn't there but I'm sure there was one. I asked to the Parliament's services for it a nd you will see, we'll show you later, the campaign with all the posters and everything, that was done at the European Parliament. It is true that quite often the European Parliaments initiatives are not able to get to the root of the problems."

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Pier Antonio PANZERI (S&amp;D, IT), "A realistic, updated perspective is needed. This doesn't mean that we justify Bashar El Assad's regime, on the contrary."

SOUNDBITE (Polish), Andrzej GRZYB (EPP, PL), "It's a source of concern for as but also a source of frustration, because the efforts we can make to help address the humanitarian problem are a drop in the ocean, it's not up to the scale of the problem. You have thousands of people that come to Europe asking for asylum and 130,000 of these people are Syrians."

SOUNDBITE (English), F. E. Youkhana, Syrian oppsitonist, Catholic priest , "The migration and resettlement programmes are not the solution. I repeat: the migration and resettlement programmes are not the solution. They may offer individual solutions for individual cases. But we need to deal with the collective problem of hundreds of thousands of people."

SOUNDBITE (English), Salma KAHALE, Activist, Executive Director of NGO &quot;Dawlaty&quot;, "We need to have this support for all those people who are also working to...m on the ground, who are still there, whether that's moral support, financial support, and to make their voices heard because they are there and they are still doing the work, even though all you see in the news is ISIS and now, more and more, Assad."

SOUNDBITE (English), Marisa MATIAS (GUE/NGL, PT), President of the Delegation for relations with the Mashreq countries (DMAS) , "Unfortunately (we) have also some responsibilities in the creation of this so-called Islamic State and if we don't look to that we look to nothing else. And, of course, we need to support you and, of course we need to listen to you and I think we have to take our responsibility in mind."

SOUNDBITE (English), Marisa MATIAS (GUE/NGL, PT), President of the Delegation for relations with the Mashreq countries (DMAS), "We cannot enable ourselves to have a fifth anniversary of the Syrian conflict in a situation like this. Thank you so much."