Arab League observer Anwar Malek has resigned from the group’s mission in Syria describing the mission as a farce.

Speaking to Qatar’s Al-Jazeera news channel on 10 January, Malek said Bashar Al-Assad’s government had failed to implement any of the League’s proposals and was engaging in fabrication and deception.

“I found myself serving the regime and I did not belong to an independent monitor team that watches the situation on the ground”, says Malek.

“I’m serving the regime because I’m giving its further opportunity for killing and I’m unable to stop that killing”.

Malek has lived for more than fifteen years in the central Syrian city of Homs, which has become the focal point of protests and violent suppression in the country. 

“I have seen shameful scenes; burnt bodies that have been tortured, skinned bodies, children murdered. Occasionally someone is snipered. I have seen all of that … I can’t just give up my humanity in such cases or pretend independence or neutrality”.

US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice reports a senior UN official telling the Security Council on 10 January that Damascus has accelerated its killing of demonstrators after Arab League monitors arrived, with an estimated 400 people killed.