In the past week alone, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad has taken the lives of 200 innocent men, women and children in Hama, and dozens more in Deir al-Zour. We are deeply concerned that the council has failed to take prompt or effective action to protect the victims of Syrian mass killings. We regret that the council waited during months of bloodshed, while more than 400 were killed, before it held a single meeting in April. Although Syria was eventually condemned at that meeting, there has been no meaningful follow-up action for the victims.

There has been a major struggle to put an end to Syrian violence since the protests began earlier this year. Last week, a group of UN human rights experts condemned the Syrian government [JURIST report] and called for a cessation of the continued use of lethal violence to suppress peaceful protests. The UN expressed concern [press release; JURIST report] over violence in Syria several times before that and urged the Syrian government to stop using force against protesters. In April, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad [Al Jazeera profile] ended [JURIST report] the country's 48-year-old state of emergency, but protests have continued. Over one thousand people have been killed and 10,000 displaced since protests erupted in February.