Al-Qadri: The siege and coercive measures are policies of collective punishment condemned and rejected

Geneva (ST): The head of the General Federation of Trade Unions, Jamal Al-Qadri, affirmed that the illegitimate unilateral siege policies and coercive measures imposed on some countries, including Syria, are nothing but policies of collective punishment condemned and rejected.

Al-Qadri said during a speech at the current 110th International Labor Conference held in Geneva, “The unjust terrorist war that Syria faced has left negative and catastrophic repercussions on the Syrians, especially workers,” noting that it targeted all the necessities of life and deprived the national economy of its main resources in an attempt to destroy everything built by the Syrian workers and people.

Al-Qadri added, “The practices of the terrorists, the economic siege and the coercive measures imposed on the Syrian people have stifled the Syrian economy and brought it to the brink of disability, which led to the depletion of its resources and affected its ability to secure the basic needs and services of the Syrian people and the requirements for their livelihood and reconstruction.”

With regard to the issue of Syrian refugees, which resulted from the attacks of terrorist groups and the difficult economic reality left by them, Al-Qadri called on the host countries to respond to the measures taken by the Syrian state to return them, including the recently issued amnesty decree, which allows the return of large numbers of them to their country, calling for pressure on the countries that are still imposing the economic blockade is affecting the ability of the Syrian state to launch reconstruction programs that will accelerate their return.