Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs Paulo Portas is to speak on behalf of the European Union (EU) Tuesday at a UN debate in Geneva on the situation in Syria.

A Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said Portas had been asked by the European Union’s High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherin Ashton to intervene in the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council debate on Syria.

Portas told reporters Monday that tougher sanctions against Damascus should hit the country’s regime and members of its government, but “safeguard the population”.

Governors “who are authorising schools be transformed into prisons and forbidding hospitals from treating the injured”, will be targeted with further sanctions, he said.

(Photograph: Olivier Hoslet/EPA/Lusa)