Activists: Syrian hospitals are torture chamber

(CBS News) In a video shot secretly inside a Syrian regime military hospital in the besieged rebel stronghold of Homs, men are blindfolded and shackled to their beds. The chains are extremely tight.

One man's chest and hand show what appear to be wounds from a severe beating. Instruments of torture lie on a nearby table - an electric cable and a rubber whip.

The hospital staffer, who risked his life to capture this footage, said he's seen doctors assault opposition activists.

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"I have seen detainees being tortured by electrocution, whipping, beating with batons," the man videotaping said, adding they also break their legs by twisting the feet until the leg gives.

This is not the first account of allegations of torture in state run hospitals. This week the U.N. said it had received similar video.

Abu Abdullah is a doctor from the city of Homs. He recently came to Lebanon after he was injured in a rocket attack while he was treating opposition forces in a makeshift clinic.

He told CBS News about one patient whom he tried to evacuate from Homs. He says the convoy was stopped by Syrian army soldiers and the wounded man was taken to a military hospital.

"Two days later, they called his family and told them to come and pick up his body," Abu Abdullah said. "His body was burned and had holes from nails in it."

Most people who are injured in the fighting go to makeshift clinics for treatment. Medical supplies are limited and the conditions are basic, but the alternative - military hospitals - can be a death sentence.

[erpicferl]

lies...there's no way doctors would allow people to be treated this way.

[charlieispain]

Wondering about the caliber of comments (and sanity of commenters)?

Wonder no more -- thanks Drudge, you're always good for revealing the truly deranged fragment of our society and their complete, blind, ignor@nce.

[IbSnooker]

Yes, well, you've certainly brought the level of discourse here to new heights with your gem of a comment. Thank you for your insightful analysis and thoughtful discussion regarding the horrors of a war ravaged region. I don't think your comment could possibly be more on point. Congrats!

[JWnTX]

While I'm sure Syria doesn't bend over backwards to help the opposition, I think most who have been paying attention to the Palestinian/Israeli situation and the situation in Iraq after the invasion know that the Arabs know better than most how to produce propaganda that America's left will glom onto and believe as fact, regardless of how staged (remember "green helmet" and his refrigerated truck full of child corpse props?). While I don't fear involvement in Syria, I don't think we should go based on unverified films that could have easily been staged. We went into Iraq with far more evidence from verified and trusted sources and still got burned. The calls for intervention are instructive, though--that the left would be screaming to intervene based on the evidence of what could easily be a movie script demonstrates their unserious and politically motivated assaults on the Bush Administration.

[jm4006]

Wow. The vitriol spewed in these comments is enough to make you shudder. Yikes.

[pamdix]

I don't believe anything from our government or it's shills, the MSM, until I see the pictures of Osama bin Laden dead with bullet holes. How convenient to get rid of the body so quickly.

[pamdix]

I see nothing in this film that proves the allegations. Sounds like propaganda to me. Our President, added such language back into the DAA to allow the U.S. government to arrest any U.S. citizen, or any foreign national without probable cause, to hold them indefinitely without a right to an attorney, and to send them to foreign countries to be tortured. So, how is this report any different than what could happen to any US citizen?

[JonnyHancock]

State run healthcare! This is what we have to look forward to.

[dencal26]

These are the type of false stories spread to raise public support for an invasion. Remember the Gulf War " Babies tossed out of incubators" and the equipment brought back to Iraq. It was a lie.

[Notsoldoninvasion]

Let's please remember the pre-invasion propaganda of the first Iraq war (total lies from an american pr company) before we react:

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/incubatorlie.html

If this story is true it is horrid and ghastly, but we have been manipulated many times by such stories and images before only to find out they were not as portrayed.

[royklopfenstein]

Obamacare.

[VirginiaProud]

Exactly - It hit me when I read "state-run hospital" - get ready.
Look at the freedom we will be giving up if we give the government control over healthcare. Wake up - toss Obama out come November!!!!!!!!!