Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether the Government plans to raise with the (a) Government of Syria and (b) UN the need for unhindered access by independent international monitors to all places of detention in Syria.

During the UN Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review of Syria in October 2016, the UK urged the Syrian regime to grant unhindered access to independent human rights monitors, including the UN Commission of Inquiry. We have also discussed the plight of detainees with UN officials. UN Human Rights Council resolutions on Syria, which the UK co-sponsored, call for the appropriate international monitoring bodies to be granted immediate access without undue restriction to all detainees and for the Syrian authorities to publish a list of all detention facilities.