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19:59 GMT
GENEVA, March 27 (KUNA) -- The UN Human Rights Council voted to extend the mandate for the commission tasked with investigating human rights breaches in Syria for one year on Friday, and "strongly condemned" breaches by regime forces along with foreign and terrorist armed groups.
"The Council strongly condemned the practices including abductions, hostage-taking, incommunicado detention, torture, sexual violence, the brutal killing of civilians and summary executions carried out by regime forces and affiliated militias, non-State armed groups, as well as terrorist groups, and underlined that such acts may amount to crimes against humanity.
"The Council extended for one year the mandate of the Commission of Inquiry on Syria and requested it to provide an oral update at the 29th session of the Human Rights Council and written updated reports at the 30th and 31st sessions," according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) website.
The resolution on the continuing grave deterioration in the human rights and humanitarian situation in Syria was adopted by a vote of 29 nations in favour, six against and 12 abstentions.
The Council also adopted texts on human rights in the Syrian Golan occupied by Israel, by a vote of 29 in favour, 1 against and 17 abstentions.
Describing Israel as "the occupying Power" it condemned as "null and void and without international legal effect" the decision of Israel to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the occupied Syrian Golan.
It went to demand that Israel halt its continuous building of settlements, desist from imposing Israeli citizenship and Israeli identity cards on Syrian citizens in the area, and to desist from its "repressive measures" against the Syrians there.
The Council also demanded Israel "to release immediately the Syrian detainees in Israeli prisons, some of whom have been detained for more than 28 years, and to treat them in conformity with international humanitarian law; and requests the Secretary-General to disseminate the present resolution as widely as possible and to report on this matter to the Human Rights Council at its 31st session." (end)
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