2024-04-24 10:14:24
The American Coalition for Syria and the Syrian American Council said the bill received approval from 79 senators while only 18 rejected it, meaning it received enough votes to pass. send to US President Joe Biden for his signature and become effective law. law.
The Council’s vote on the bill is part of a package of urgent legislative measures that includes voting on bills authorizing $95 billion in emergency aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan.
A week ago, the “American Coalition for Syria” announced that the “Captagon-2” bill was included in this urgent legislative package, describing it as an “unprecedented” measure and “something contrary to legislative custom” in the United States. , as the bill was brought to the Senate for a vote just one week following it passed the U.S. House of Representatives.
Last Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed the bill with an overwhelming majority of 410 votes, while only 13 members rejected it.
U.S. Syria Coalition Government Relations Officer Muhammad Alaa Ghanem said the bill gives the U.S. government new and expanded powers to hold the Assad regime and all networks and individuals involved accountable in the trade, manufacture or smuggling of drugs, or who benefits from its profits, “regardless of their nationality”.
Ghanem added to Al-Modon that the bill was presented in July 2023 to the House Foreign Relations Committee with the support of the coalition of Syrian community organizations, noting that it was approved at that time by lawmakers from the Democratic and Syrian parties. The Republican parties unanimously obtained 44 votes in favor, once morest 0 for rejection.
He explained that the bill aims to complement legislative efforts aimed at combating the Assad family’s Captagon drug trade, which “generates profits for the regime estimated at billions of dollars”, in addition to use as “a card of political pressure on Arab countries”. that the regime seeks to flood them and their people with drugs. »
The bill states that Congress has found that the mass manufacturing of Captagon and the production of its raw materials in areas controlled by the regime has grown to the point of “threatening regional and international security”, and that the parties Governments are the main architects of this situation. trade, and that there are high-ranking officials manufacturing and smuggling it with the help of technical and logistical support from armed groups such as Lebanese Hezbollah.
The new bill aims to complement these efforts and go beyond developing a strategy alone to create new powers by expanding the prosecution and liability of anyone involved in or benefiting from this trade, and imposing secondary sanctions to any party, entity or person working. with the Assad family in this trade or profit from it regardless of their nationality.
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