U.N. Rights Council: Momentum Not Lost in Syria

Members of the U.N. Human Rights Council said Friday they seek to "shine a spotlight" on violations in Syria and will press ahead with investigations of the regime whether or not its monitors are allowed into the country.

A U.N. human rights fact-finding mission was barred entry to the violence-plagued state in August, and a subsequent U.N.-backed commission of inquiry has also been refused access, with its members instead traveling to border areas in neighboring countries to monitor abuses from there.

"On the Syria point, the moment has not passed, not even close," Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Council, told a gathering at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think-tank.

"We do not feel like we've lost our momentum ... and we will do everything we can to shine a spotlight on the continuing violations and put pressure on to the maximum effect we can."

Chamberlain Donahoe said the prohibition of entry "actually further motivates the international community" to pressure the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

The commission of inquiry will release a report on Syria November 30, and the Geneva-based rights council is likely to convene a session to address the contents of the report, Chamberlain Donahoe said.

Deputy U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Kyung-wha Kang told the Washington forum that despite lack of access on the streets of Syrian cities like Damascus, Homs and elsewhere, "with modern-day technology we're not faced with any shortage of information."

U.N. investigators, she said, "were even Skyping with demonstrators who were doggedly there, fighting the battle on the streets everyday."

While Kang insisted that hearing the testimony from some 150 victims and witnesses who escaped to neighboring countries allowed the United Nations to "get a clear sense of the patterns of violations," she acknowledged that U.N. officers "would of course have liked to go in and see the situation" for themselves.

"We continue to push for access and investigations" in Syria, she told Agence France Presse.

Assad's regime has been engaged in a seven-month brutal crackdown on protesters that U.N. officials say has claimed more than 3,000 lives since mid-March.

Syrian troops killed 17 people on Friday as demonstrators took to the streets to test the regime's commitment to an Arab peace deal calling for an end to violence.