Syrian rebels to take training over international law in Turkey
ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News
A kid pulls a cart carrying water next to a water distribution point in Aleppo. The brochures for the training the Syrian Coalition show drawings such as a fighter using civilians as human shield, labeling it an incorrect practice. AFP photo
A Geneva-based NGO will start training military and legal officials in the armed Free Syrian Army (FSA) today on the basics of international humanitarian law in Turkey’s southeastern provinces.Officials from Geneva Call, which aims to convince non-state actors to respect international humanitarian and human rights law, will conduct the three-day trainings for the Free Syrian Army members first in Gaziantep and then in Hatay province.
‘Fighter, not Killer’
The workshop, titled “Fighter not Killer,” will be held between May 10 and 12 in Gaziantep. The same workshop will take place in Hatay’s Reyhanlı district May 13 to 15. A source from the Syrian National Coalition told the Hürriyet Daily News yesterday that the workshop would not be military training but rather would draw attention to international humanitarian law, stating that some of the FSA fighters had not been soldiers before the uprising in the country.
The fighters will be told not to allow children become fighters even if they demand it. The workshop aims to teach the fighters that they are not killers, and how to treat captured soldiers from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.
The workshop revolves around 15 rules of international humanitarian law that represent the basic standards of military conflicts.
The brochures for the training the Syrian
Coalition show drawings such as a fighter
using civilians as human shield, labeling
it an incorrect practice.
A Syrian source told the Daily News that they had already organized the first of these workshops in Hatay two months ago.
