طبيب في حلب المحاصرة يتخذ اجراءات قانونية ضد الاتحاد الروسي
عاجل – شبكة المرصد الإخبارية
أقام طبيب القلب الدكتور معاوية العوض احد الاطباء المتبقين على قيد الحياة في مدينة حلب السورية والذي يعالج ضحايا قصف روسيا والنظام للمناطق الشرقية في المدينة والتي تسيطر عليها المعارضة السورية دعوى قضائية ضد روسيا في المحكمة الاوروبية لحقوق الانسان وتمثله في القضية المحامية البريطانية جارث بيرس.
وفي بيان صحفي حصل المرصد الإعلامي الإسلامي على نسخة منه وهو البيان التالي:
طبيب في حلب المحاصرة يتخذ اجراءات قانونية ضد الاتحاد الروسي
ثلاث مبادرات تتخذها جهات مختلفة مساء امس، الاولى طائرات حربية روسية في اسواق حلب حيث شنت غارات غير مسبوقة والاكثر وحشية و دموية الى الان، و اكتظ محتجون في وستمنستر احتجاجا على صمت الوزراء و فشلهم في اتخاذ الاجراءات اللازمة، و اخر من حلب لما قام احد الدكاترة المتبقين على قيد الحياة والذي يعالج ضحايا قصف الاسواق، قام بتحدي روسيا برفع دعوى قضائية في المحكمة الاوروبية لحقوق الانسان. وتستند هذه الدعوى التي هي اشبه بمعركة ‘داود مع جالوت’ الى مبادئ قانونية اساسية و هامة للغاية.
طبيب القلب الدكتور معاوية العوض يعمل في مستشفى القدس في حلب منذ عام ٢٠١٢. يعمل المستشفى حاليا من موقع غير معلن بعد ان تم استهدافه و تدمير موقعه الاصلي خلال غارة جوية بتاريخ ٢٧ ابريل ٢٠١٦.
تستند دعواه ضد روسيا على انتهاك المادة ٢ (حق الفرد في الحياة) و المادة ٣ من حقوق الانسان (حق الفرد للتمتع بالعيش بعيدا عن المعاملة لاإنسانية و المهينة) بحقه وبحق مرضاه.
وفي ٢٩ سبتمبر ٢٠١٦ وصف ستيفن اوبراين، المسؤول الرئيسي لحقوق الانسان بمجلس الامن الدولي الظروف في حلب قائلا ” دعوني اكون واضحا، ليست حلب في هذه اللحظة على حافة الهاوية، بل من الواضح انها اخذت بالهبوط المريع في اعماق كارثة انسانية لا نهاية لها، بلا شفقة ولا رحمة ولم نشهد لها مثيلا في سوريا. سوريا تنزف، ومواطنوها يموتون، ونحن نسمع نداءهم واستغاثتهم.
العمل الذي قام به الدكتور معاوية وضع معايير غير مسبوقة، والدعوى التي تم رفعها للمحكمة الاروروبية تم ارسال بياناتها بناء على طلبه للوزارات الخارجية التابعة لفرنسا والمملكة المتحدة و الولايات المتحدة ووزارات خارجية تابعة لدول اوروبية اخرى. وقد وفرت تلك المعلومات لجميع هيئات الامم المتحدة ذات الصلة و المقررين الخاصين. وقد ترك الامر الان بين ايديهم وفي احاطتهم تماماً و الى المحكمة الاوروبية لاتخاذ الخطوات اللازمة بناء على الدعوى المرفوعة من قبل طبيب مستنفذ مناوب ٢٠ ساعة في ظروف شاقة مهدد بالقتل بأي لحظة.
المرصد الإعلامي الإسلامي
الخميس 12 محرم 1438 هـ الموافق 13 أكتوبر 2016م
معلومات وخلفية عن القضية باللغة الانجليزية
CASE BROUGHT AGAINST RUSSIA BY ALEPPO DOCTOR IN THE
EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS
BRIEFING NOTE
EXPLANATION OF LEGAL CASE RE RIGHT TO LIFE
A doctor in besieged eastern Aleppo has commenced a case against Russia in the European Court of Human Rights. Doctor Moawyah Al-Awad, a cardiologist whose hospital has been repeatedly subjected to aerial bombardment by Russian armed forces, has filed a formal complaint in respect of violations by Russia of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Convention requires its signatories, member states of the Council of Europe, to guarantee the right to life (Article 2), freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment (Article 3) and respect for private and family life (Article 8). Where a Convention State exercises significant practical control and effective authority over the lives of others, even outside its own boundaries, it can in exceptional circumstances be held to account by the European Court of Human Rights for Convention breaches. The circumstances that caused Dr Al Awad to file this case are already acknowledged by the international community as a whole to be exceptional in their gravity and consequences for the affected victims who have nevertheless been able to access no remedy or redress through any intervention by States or international organisations.
AL QUDS HOSPITAL
The Al Quds hospital (supported by international donors Médecins Sans Frontières and the International Committee of the Red Cross) in which Dr Al Awad together with a tiny core of medical colleagues struggles to treat patients on 20 hour shifts at a time, has been repeatedly and deliberately targeted by Russian airstrikes acting in collaboration with the forces of Bashar Al Assad. The lives and fate of his patients (and colleagues, many of whom have been killed) is entirely determined by Russia together with the Assad regime, not only by maintenance of a state of siege preventing access to food, fuel and medical supplies but in orchestrated lethal bomb attacks. On October 9th the Russian Ambassador to the UK confirmed that the Russian Government intentionally bomb hospitals.
PREVIOUS STRIKES ON HOSPITAL
The former Al Quds hospital building was attacked on 27th April 2016; the building was destroyed and six of Dr Al Awad’s colleagues were killed including one of the last remaining paediatricians still practising in Aleppo. That bombing followed a pattern and underlined what was to continue – that attacks on medical facilities were entirely deliberate. The first strike was followed rapidly by a second and third, a pattern repeated elsewhere sufficiently frequently to establish it as a deliberate tactic – so that those attending the wounded from the first attack, would themselves be killed and injured.
The hospital now operates from a new location. Dr Al-Awad and his colleagues continue working around the clock in improvised facilities, with wholly inadequate equipment and disappearing medical supplies in the face of the total siege enforced by Russia in what he
describes as “the most difficult circumstances” that he has experienced since the start of the conflict in 2011. He describes the intolerable choices that have to be made as to which patients to try to save when there are too few critical supplies to save all.
INDEPENDENCE AND INTEGRITY OF HOSPITAL
The Al Quds hospital has been publicly commended for its independence, meaning its autonomy from parties to the conflict political, economic or military such as to demand a protected status under international humanitarian law. Instead it and other hospitals are subject to a campaign of deliberate attack by Russia.
WORSENING ATTACKS SEPT/OCT 2016
Operating already past breaking point, he describes all in east Aleppo as “suffering a slow death”. On 1st October another large Aleppo hospital, M10, was hit by 2 bunker busting bombs whose only purpose could have been to destroy it. Doctor Al Awad believes Russia has moved towards a “scorched earth” policy in Aleppo.
Attacks of a level described by the US Secretary of State as “barbaric” have intensified. The type of munitions being dropped on civilian residential neighbourhoods in eastern Aleppo now involve the new more powerful bombs, described as “bunker buster” munitions (designed for use against military fortification), being used against Aleppo’s civilian neighbourhoods. Aerial attacks include the use of cluster bombs that scatter hundreds of smaller bombs, exploding over a wide area and leaving a legacy of unexploded munitions, and incendiary bombs.
The current joint bombardment of Aleppo has been one of the worst in Syria’s long running civil war killing some 400 people and wounding 1,700 others. An estimated 250,000 persons still live in eastern Aleppo under near continuous siege since mid July and experiencing life threatening shortages. On 26th September Matthew Rycroft the UK Ambassador to the UN said during an emergency Security Council session on Syria, “Bunker busting bombs more suited to destroying military installations are now destroying homes, decimating bomb shelters, crippling, laming, and killing dozens if not hundreds. Incendiary munitions indiscriminate in their reach are being dropped onto civilian areas so that yet again Aleppo is burning. The capital’s water supplies so vital to millions are now being targeted depriving water to those most in need. In short it is difficult to deny that Russia is partnering with the Syrian regime to carry out war crimes.” The Ambassador’s statement mirrors the observations of Dr Al Awad.
THE TESTIMONY OF DR AL-AWAD – EFFECTS ON VICTIMS
Dr Al-Awad describes to the European Court witnessing massacres on a daily basis. He describes treating victims of napalm, cluster and thermobaric bombs. He carries the fear of becoming a victim himself, that fear compounded by the horrific injuries that he has
witnessed and treated. He describes how working in a hospital is no different than being on the front line because the Russian and Assad regime are deliberately targeting hospitals and medical staff.
He describes the streets of eastern Aleppo as being unsafe to travel on; the road on which he must travel to reach his house has been bombed three times in the past ten days. He describes incidents during the last week of September following the breakdown of the ceasefire as examples of ongoing sustained attacks. On 24th September dozens were horrifically injured by cluster bombs in a Russian attack while they queued to buy milk at a milk distribution centre. On 27th September he witnessed the victims of an attack on the al-Fatah school. He described the dismembered and disfigured bodies of children. The hospital at which the surviving children were treated, M10, was itself destroyed days later.
Yesterday afternoon at the same moment his case against Russia was being lodged in Strasbourg, he described “a new massacre” and the wounded and dying victims of fresh deliberate strikes on a market place being brought into Al Quds.
Dr Al-Awad’s case against Russia is brought not only on the basis of its violation of the right to life (Article 2 of The Convention), but Article 3 as well – that its actions inflict inhuman and degrading treatment is unarguable.
In his hospital as in every hospital in Aleppo, he and his colleagues work in circumstances of constant fear and panic. He describes everyone as living in a state of true terror. He describes those whom he treats as suffering exceptional levels of what he describes as “mental torture”. He describes many of the injuries from the bombs used as life changing, having a profound impact upon the victims. Not simply the injuries, but the constant pounding of Aleppo, malnutrition due to lack of proper sustenance and the effects of chemical weapons described by him add to the devastating aspects of those trapped in the city. He states with certainty that Russian and regime forces have used the latter and he describes coming across cases otherwise inexplicable of haemolytic anaemia. He describes the vulnerability of the houses in the part of Aleppo in which he lives and the use by Russia of “bunker busting missiles” as allowing for very little chance of survival even in the most robust modern building or in underground premises. He describes the whole of civilian eastern Aleppo as being seen by the Russians as a legitimate target, in fact working in a hospital attracts an increased risk of being deliberately targeted. He considers that for every doctor being killed and every hospital demolished the Russians know that they are effectively killing tens and hundreds more individuals. He describes no human being able to process what is happening here, the daily ritual of seeing men, women and children blown apart, without arms and legs, disabled and disfigured for life, bodies full of shrapnel, some people with as many as 20 to 30 pieces embedded in their bodies, hearing their screams of excruciating pain.
BIRNBERG PEIRCE AND PARTNERS
Tel: 020 7911 0166
Lawyers for Dr Al- Awad: Gareth Peirce and Sajida Malik
نص البيان الصحفي باللغة الانجليزية
PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
12 October 2016
Doctor in besieged Aleppo launches legal action against the Russian Federation
Yesterday afternoon three initiatives were being launched – from Russian jets, blitz bombing Aleppo markets in their most brutal onslaught to date – from Westminster where protest raged and ministers could suggest no action and from Aleppo. One of the few remaining doctors, struggling with fellow medics to treat the wounded survivors of yesterday’s market place bombings was filing a direct legal challenge to Russia in the European Court of Human Rights. This David and Goliath action is based on critically important legal principles.
Dr Moawyah Al-Awad* is a cardiologist who has been working in Al Quds hospital in Aleppo since 2012. The hospital now operates from an undisclosed location, its original site having been destroyed by a deliberate airstrike on 27th April 2016.
His claim against Russia is based on its violation of his right (and that of his patients) to life (Article 2) and of his right (and that of his patients) to live free from inhuman and degrading treatment (Article 3).
On 29th September the circumstances in Aleppo were described to the UN Security Council by its chief humanitarian official Stephen O’Brien in the following terms “Let me be clear, east Aleppo this minute is not at the edge of the precipice it is well into its terrible descent into the pitiless and merciless abyss of a human catastrophe unlike any we have witnessed in Syria. Syria is bleeding. Its citizens are dying. We all hear their cry for help”.
Dr Al-Awad’s action sets a standard beyond rhetoric. The case lodged with the European Court has, at his request, been sent to the UK and French foreign ministries, and those of the US and other European countries. It has been provided to all relevant UN bodies and special rapporteurs. It is now entirely up to them, as well as to the European Court, to utilise his initiative. An initiative taken by an exhausted doctor working 20 hour shifts in punishing conditions under fear of immediate death.
* A photograph of Dr Al-Awad and of the treatment of the wounded is included with this press release.
BIRNBERG PEIRCE AND PARTNERS
Tel: 020 7911 0166
Lawyers for Dr Al- Awad: Gareth Peirce and Sajida Malik