Torture during the Syrian Civil War
Various forms of torture in the Syrian Civil War were perpetrated on prisoners and opponents by almost every party to the conflict . The use of torture and the extrajudicial, arbitrary execution of prisoners in an armed conflict such as the Syrian Civil War constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity when used widely and systematically. For the reaction of international politics, the question was important whether there was systematic torture on the part of government forces, for example in Syrian prisons, as this constitutes a violation of international law that could result in military intervention.
Scientists and non-Syrian politicians consider the information policy on torture by conflicting parties to be highly dependent on the interests of individual conflict groups. That is why it is difficult to quantify the number of victims and to assess the extent in the current ongoing conflict situation.
Syrian government
At the end of January 2014, The Guardian and CNN released information about a report by Human Rights Watch based on statements by a Syrian police photographer who claims to have defected. According to him, there is systematic torture in Syrian prisons. He alone smuggled pictures of 11,000 dead prisoners, which he photographed himself, out of the country on data media. Some of the dead inmates in the pictures no longer had eyes, and others were apparently strangled or electrocuted. Many prisoners were emaciated, others showed traces of beating with bars or other objects.
Human Rights Watch commissioned for the report the former chief prosecutor of the war crimes tribunal for Sierra Leone , Desmond de Silva , the prosecutor in the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic , Geoffrey Nice , and David Crane , the Liberian president Charles Taylor has accused. They classified the statements of the escaped police officer and the photos as authentic.
De Silva told the Guardian that the pictures were "direct evidence of killings on an industrial scale" by the government of President Bashar al-Assad . They also documented the direct connection between torture and the killing of prisoners, which violates international and martial law. "This is the kind of clue every prosecutor looks for and hopes for, " Crane said. The authors made the material available to the United Nations , government officials and human rights groups.
Opposition groups
Armed opposition groups were responsible for the ill-treatment and torture of prisoners and for extrajudicial and arbitrary executions in various Syrian cities. In Aleppo , Latakia and Idlib is said to have come to these measures, the organization reported ANCH a visit to the Aleppo Governorate 2012th Three high-ranking opposition officials, to whom Human Rights Watch presented evidence of extrajudicial executions in 2012, said that the victims deserve to be killed and that only the worst criminals are being executed.
Human Rights Watch calls on the opposition to support codes of conduct for armed opposition groups that promote respect for human rights and international human rights norms.
Reactions
The United States and other Western governments accused the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad soon after the outbreak of fighting in front of having committed war crimes during battles against his opponents. Assad always rejected this.
Individual evidence
- ^ Syria: Witnesses Corroborate Mass Deaths in Custody Claims; Released Detainees Recount Torture, Death in Sednaya Prison ( en ) In: Human Rights Watch . August 14, 2014. Retrieved March 6, 2017.
- ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/01/they-were-torturing-to-kill-inside-syrias-death-machine-caesar
- ↑ http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/foltersyrien100~magnifier_pos-0.html ( Memento from January 24, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ http://www.hrw.org/de/news/2012/09/17/syrien-folter-und-hinrichtungen-durch-opposition-beenden
- ↑ Assad is said to have systematically killed prisoners. In: sueddeutsche.de. January 21, 2014, accessed September 25, 2018 .