DISINFO: Western countries question Syrian election after media fabricating chemical attacks
SUMMARY
Western countries do not want Syria to hold elections. They resorted before to media fabrication, including about chemical attacks. All that remains is to question the Syrian elections.
RESPONSE
Claims that chemical attacks were media fabricated or staged is a recurring pro-Kremlin narrative seeking to absolve the Syrian regime of responsibility for chemical attacks and human rights violations perpetrated in the course of the Syrian civil war. Furthermore, the recently-held presidential elections are widely regarded as a sham election, and it is not true that Western countries do not want Syria to hold elections, but want it to be held within the framework of an inclusive political process (see background section on the elections below).
These claims were neither counterbalanced nor critically challenged in the article.
Chemical attacks in Syria, including by the Syrian regime, have been well documented by many institutions and proven by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, despite Russian denials.
On 21 August 2013, the Syrian regime launched a chemical attack on the civilian population in Ghouta, just three weeks before officially pledging to comply with the Chemical Weapons Convention. Over the next five years, the regime would commit an average of seven chemical attacks annually.
By April 2018, the United Nations had confirmed 39 chemical attacks perpetrated since the beginning of the conflict, 33 of which are attributed to Damascus; those responsible for the remaining six “have not been sufficiently identified.”
On 12 April 2021, the Investigation and Identification team of the OPCW sent a report to the UN Secretary-General which concludes that units of the regime’s Air Force used chemical weapons in Saraqib on 4 February 2018.
Background information about the elections:
Presidential elections in Syria were announced on 18 April and held on 26 May. On 3 May, the Constitutional Court announced that it had accepted only three candidates (including Bashar al-Assad) and rejected 48 candidacies for “failing to meet constitutional and legal requirements”.
Briefing the UN Security Council on 26 May, Special Envoy for Syria Geir O. Pedersen said that the elections were “not part of the political process called for in resolution 2254” and, as such, he reminded the Council that he did not have the mandate to become involved in the presidential election. Resolution 2254, which was adopted unanimously in 2015, calls for “free and fair elections, pursuant to [a] new constitution, to be…administered under supervision of the UN”.
The EU considers that the elections undermine efforts to find a sustainable solution to the Syrian conflict. It cannot lead to any measure of international normalisation with the Syrian regime. The political process must be fully inclusive to ensure that all segments of Syria’s society are involved in shaping the country’s future unity and reconciliation.
See similar cases that the intelligence services of France and Belgium are preparing a false-flag chemical attack in Syria’s Idlib province, that the Douma chemical attack never took place, and the White Helmets produce another fake chemical attack video