100 signatures reached
To: Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Charlie Flanagan
The Killing Cities - Stop Assad's Civilian Slaughter
We respectfully urge you as our Minister for Foreign Affairs to immediately summon the ambassadors of both Russia and Iran to your office. We want you to express the outrage and disgust felt in Ireland as a result of the criminal, cowardly and shameful slaughter of Syrian civilians by their respective military forces and their proxies in support of the discredited regime of Bashar al Assad.
We also appeal to you to urgently promote at E.U. level an exclusion of both Russia and Iran from any international financial information transmission systems. The previous exclusion of Iran from a well-known international financial information transmission system was said to have been very effective in encouraging the Iranian government to acquiesce to international demands for security concessions in relation to its alleged nuclear development programme.
Why is this important?
Russia and Iran have been propping up the Syrian regime of Bashar al Assad for years. Assad has long lost legitimacy through his brutal campaign of subjugation against the Syrian civilian population. Unlike Assad, with whom Ireland has no diplomatic relations, Russia and Iran are trading partners of ours - although Russia is currently subjected to E.U. trade sanctions over the support it is providing to Ukrainian separatists.
The Irish Syria Solidarity Movement (irishsyriasolidaritymovement.org) has long urged the Irish government to suspend trade relations with either country due to their support for the Assad regime. However, the escalation now being seen in Aleppo with intensive bombing of civilians by Russia along with a concomitant ground offensive by Iran and its Hizbollah proxies, marks a sharp and depraved escalation in this years-long conflict and requires urgent action.
We urge everyone signing this petition to also phone (01 492 2048) and email ([email protected]) the Russian embassy to express your disgust in person. We also urge you to contact the Iranian embassy in the same regard (01 288 5881 & [email protected]). Please phone as frequently as you feel necessary. If you are emailing, please cc [email protected].