Success: Syrian war criminal Omar Aroub will not attend the Paris Olympics!
Ahead of the Games, starting this Friday, over 7,000 people around the world joined Syrian activists and survivors to call for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to ban war criminal Omar Aroub, who was expected to be part of the leadership of Syria’s Olympic team.
Aroub oversaw the violent crackdown on student protests during the Syrian revolution. He ordered the arbitrary arrest and torture of students as part of the leadership of the National Union of Syrian Students (NUSS), the de facto arm of the regime on campus.
Together we ramped up the pressure to ban Aroub by signing a global petition, writing to the IOC, securing media coverage, demonstrating in Paris, and sharing our demand across social media, all backed up by the Syrian British Consortium’s new research into persecution under the NUSS.
Public pressure worked. Our campaign pushed the International Olympic Committee to confirm that this brutal war criminal won’t receive a dignitary’s welcome in the Olympic Stadium this week.
The Olympics are just the latest example of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad using international events and diplomatic channels to polish his regime’s image around the world. A growing number of states – including Lebanon and Türkiye where millions of Syrian refugees have sought protection – are beginning to thaw relations with the regime.
Some EU states, including the Czech Republic and Cyprus, have even reportedly proposed establishing “safe zones” within Syria, and floated plans to forcibly return refugees there, with no guarantees for their safety.
The fact is there are no safe areas within Syria. Assad’s regime is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths since 2011 and countless human rights abuses. Thirteen years on, the Syrian regime still uses barbaric methods to crush dissent within the country. Refugees who have been forcibly deported to Syria by neighbouring states report horrific violations including rape, torture and disappearance.
It’s clear we will need to continue to remind the world just how brutal Assad’s criminal record is and to demand that, instead of shaking hands, they seek justice and accountability on behalf of victims, survivors and their families.
But to do this, we need to run powerful campaigns that keep the pressure on governments around the world. Will you support The Syria Campaign’s ongoing efforts to keep the spotlight on the Assad regime’s atrocities, so together, we can stop future efforts to whitewash war crimes and the regime officials who ordered them?
Pushing for Omar Aroub to be banned from the Olympics shows what we can achieve when we pile on the pressure – but it’s just the first step.
We’re still calling on the Olympic committee to refuse to recognise Aroub as the Chairman of the Syrian Paralympic Committee and Syria’s Vice President of the General Sports Federation. The IOC must also listen to Syrian, Ukrainian and Palestinian campaigners and ban other athletes and delegations linked to war crimes. This includes Amr Hamsho on the Syrian team who is sanctioned and has profiteered from close ties to the regime.
Finally, share this artwork by a prominent Syrian artist on Twitter (X) to celebrate our win and keep the pressure up:
