Member's statement: Syria: Assad Regime

Member's statement by Mr Robbie Butler on 9 December 2024.

MLA

Mr Robbie Butler

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

9 December 2024

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

Syria: Assad Regime

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4697878

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I commend the Member. His ears would have been burning last week as Kellie Armstrong and I talked about him. I say, "Well done" in his battle against cancer. We are much better off for having him in the Chamber. Before I move on to my statement, I pay tribute to Seán Fitzsimons, as, I know, the leader of the Opposition will do. Sadly, Seán, who was known to all of us, passed away at the end of last week. I put on record my appreciation to Seán and his family. He was an amazing disability advocate. We will miss him greatly, and I look forward to the Member for South Belfast's tribute. It is a real honour to be able to stand up in the Chamber during Members' statements and talk about a wide range of issues, and we will get a lot of that today. I welcome the change wrought in the last 24 hours in Syria with the end of the Assad regime. Bashar al-Assad has held an iron grip since 2000, as did his father before him. It was a regime that thought that gassing its citizens was fit for purpose. They used chemical weapons and imprisoned women and children in horrendous conditions. From 2011 to 2023, over 600,000 lives were lost — people murdered — and 6·7 million Syrians were displaced across the globe. Lagan Valley is better off for some of those Syrians who share our space. If you were listening to the radio and the stories from Syrians, you will have heard and sensed the sense of relief, jubilation and excitement that they now have. Regrettably, that moment comes with some caution, and some Syrians have been talking about that caution, because we have been there before. When we celebrated the end of the fighting in Afghanistan a number of years ago, sadly, the Taliban then took control in 2021. Just seven months after taking control, the nefarious gender-controlling hand of the Taliban started its systemic gender oppression. The first thing that they did was to ban post-primary education. Then there was the full covering of bodies and faces with a ban on intercity travelling for unaccompanied females of any age. They banned women and girls from parks and gyms and deployed armed guards to stop girls entering universities. Meryl Streep, the famous actress and singer, stated — she meant no humour in this — that:

"A squirrel has more rights than a girl in Afghanistan today".

Squirrels can sit in a park in the sun and travel without restriction in relative peace, which is not something that girls and women can do in Afghanistan. As we rightly celebrate the moment of liberation with our Syrian friends, we need to be vigilant about what comes next and not to be slow in supporting open and democratic government and demanding human rights for all, so that Syria becomes the place that it once was — a wonderful, thriving place in the Middle East — and somewhere that can set an example.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

511 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:40 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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