Group reports "archipelago" of Syria torture

Relatives care for Mohammed Obed, who is recovering in a hospital after being captured and allegedly tortured by Syrian Army soldiers, in Idlib, March 7, 2012. The man said he was tortured, then released in the street but in need of hospital treatment.

/ AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd

(CBS News) Human Rights Watch today called on the United Nations Security Council to refer the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad to the International Criminal Court, for crimes that include the illegal detention and torture of hundreds of men, women and children.

It also demanded that international monitors be given access to detention facilities in Syria where mistreatment has been documented, both by former detainees and the families of those detained and by defectors from the Assad regime's security forces.

The New York-based rights organization issued a report Tuesday, "Torture Archipelago," based on more than 200 interviews conducted since the beginning of anti-government demonstrations in March 2011. Human Rights Watch spoke with former detainees, families of detainees, and members of Syrian security forces who have defected and who actively participated in or witnessed the abuse and torture of prisoners.

The report details specific known detention centers throughout the country run by the government's four intelligence agencies (Department of Military Intelligence, Political Security Directorate, General Intelligence Directorate and Air Force Intelligence Directorate). Included are maps of government detention facilities as well as temporary holding centers (stadiums, schools, hospitals); video accounts from former detainees; and sketches depicting various torture techniques as described by those who were subjected to them or witnessed the abuses. Several former detainees claim they witnessed people dying from torture. Defecting members of the country's intelligence agencies also told the group that they either participated in or witnessed the torture and ill treatment of detainees.

"The report on torture supports the case that the U.N. human rights chief is making, to urge the Security Council to refer the case of Syria to the International Criminal Court," said CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk, who is also an international lawyer.

Torture Archipelago (Human Rights Watch)
PDF version of report

A defector who was a sergeant in the Syrian military, identified as Ghassan (the report employs pseudonyms to protect witnesses' identities), told Human Rights Watch that on January 11 or 12 he saw 12 corpses of men at his base in Zabadani, who had been brought in alive earlier that night:

"All of them were wearing civilian clothing and two of them were wearing pajamas. None of them had beards. I saw their faces as I walked by them and their faces were disfigured from blunt force trauma. Near the bodies, I saw shovels that had blood and what looked like brain particles. A soldier in the 4th Division who participated in their killing told me that they were ordered to kill them because they were all foreign terrorists. But when I went into the Colonel's office, I saw the dead men's identification cards in plain view on his desk. All the men were Syrians, from Sarghaya. The soldier told me that he and other soldiers had killed the men. He didn't say how but that they were all alive when they brought them in."

As of mid-June 2012, a Syrian monitoring group had recorded the names of 575 people who died while in custody since March of last year.

U.N. rights chief urges halt of arms to Syria

Because independent verification is extremely difficult, and due to the extreme secrecy of the Assad government, the exact number of those detained since anti-government protests began last year is impossible to tell. However, a Syrian monitoring group had documented more than 25,000 detentions through June 2012.

The Assad regime typically has dismissed such reports, blaming the country's ongoing violence on terrorists. On Monday, U.N. high commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay reported to the Security Council that both government and opposition forces are escalating the conflict, but laid most of the responsibility for some of the deadliest episodes - namely the massacre of dozens of civilians in Houla - at the feet of government-supported forces.

Torture victims interviewed by Human Rights Watch - while predominantly young men - included women, children and the elderly.

Through mid-June 2012, according local activists, 635 children and 319 women were detained. At least twelve children were tortured.

The conditions of detention were described as raw and inhumane - extreme overcrowding, inadequate food, and denial of medical care. Human Rights Watch documented more than 20 different methods of torture used, including prolonged beatings with such objects as batons and wires; painful stress positions; the use of electricity; burning with car battery acid; sexual assault and humiliation; the pulling of fingernails; and mock execution.

Most of the detentions documented in the report were carried out during and immediately following anti-government protests; in the course of large-scale "sweep" operations conducted house-to-house; at road checkpoints; and in raids on the homes of "wanted" individuals (whose relatives might be detained instead if the targets were not there) - usually without legal justification. Raids were often accompanied by looting and property destruction, and by beatings - actions usually ordered, authorized or condoned by commanding officers.

Interrogators and officers usually demanded detainees confess to participating in anti-Assad demonstrations. They also asked for names of other demonstrators and organizers, or information about alleged support from abroad. But many ex-detainees believe the torture was inflicted merely to punish and intimidate those being held.

"Syrians have been under the iron hand of the Assad family for decades, and the report documents some of the atrocities that have taken place, which explains why, several diplomats have argued, it has been difficult for the opposition to organize," Falk reports.

[euge005]

I can see Chaney getting excited reading this and taking notes in case Obama continues to wimp out on his arrest for the war crimes he committed in the murders of 150,000 Iraqis. Once an abuser always an abuser and he will do something evil again like redrite hostory if he is allowed a chance to do it.

[usunus]

The credibility of HRW is not enhanced by turning a blind eye to the atrocities being committed by the wahabized Sunni rebels in Syria on religious minorities and captured government soldiers.Human rights groups have issued similar onesided reports in the Libyan conflict too.To this day we don't know how many Libyan civilians were killed by the NATO airstrikes.Overall,these Western human rights groups have been echoing the partisan policies of their respective governments.

[Padov74]

Concerning NATO's Libyan intervention, remember it was primarily a 'No-Fly' zone and 'No-drive' zone mission targeting military vehicles/artillery poised on the outskirts of civilian population centers. Other strikes were evidently targeted against military bases/facilities military infrastructure and defenses, mil HQ's and military depot. The ROE were highly restrictive -- eg, 'no shock and awe' type urban center bombardments. Most civilian casualties, some of them presumably contractors or support, would have been caught within military bases or military infrastructure when they were targeted. There was no evidence of any catastrophic 'highway of death' type strikes although there was accidental targeting of anti-regime forces and vehicles in the field and on roadways. No prolonged, large scale operation is clean or surgical, but the Libyan operation was specifically planned and able to avoid major civilian casualties, as tragic, many-times unnecessary and brutal any war is.

[myth1958]

David Morgan details the sad current history of the Assad regime and the lengths they will go to in hanging on to power. The people there don't have any alternative to dictatorship other than violent revolution, at this point. The regime is using all the dirty tricks: torture, imprisonment, rape (of men and women) and murder to stem a hopeless tide against it. As in Libya and other nations that have tasted this 'Arab Spring', Syria is desperate to keep the ruling cadre in power, although the represent a minority group. We may gripe about the legal system here in the U.S., but we should be thankful. Syria just doesn't have one - it is run by a brutal dictatorship. As in every case in history, this model won't last, and the folks responsible for propping it up will be killed if the people get a chance at them. Assad deserves death, for sure. This sort of repression won't let him escape his fate, no matter where he flees, now. Good.

[speakthetrut]

Now let us see the torture illustrations from Guantanamo and Abu Ghareib.

Syria is torturing a military defector? What about our own Bradley Manning? He didn't even defect to enemy side, yet he is forced to sleep on cold concrete floor with nothing but his underwear, and woken up by the guard every TEN minutes, and thrown cold water on him if he keep falling asleep.

[lesserof2evil]

so torture by us is soft and ok, torture by others is war crime. HYPOCRISY AT ITS FINEST.

[Mars_Patrol]

The cynicism is sad and apparently a cheap and routine mechanism to dodge the heat of reality. Shame on you to neglect this barbaric reality... the off-topic diversions, propaganda and denial is completely sad and sign of one's weak stance.

Keep focused. This issue is about face down barbaric act of brutal repression and torture of protesters and dissidents of a totalitarian police-state regime of Syria.

That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. Regarding other issues, such as injustice in US, China, or Russia, etc, then absolutely it's time focus on that issue. This is about flat out torturous and brutal totalitarian police state of current Syrian regime who's actions would NEVER be tolerated in the US or any western country, without a popular uprising in response.

[euge005]

But is is allowed here and no one in the Chaney Rumsfeld Bush trio of evil has even been arrested yet.

[Nikos_Retsos]

It seems to me that with Russian support, Bashar Assad has become "Ivan The Terrible" of Syria. And the "Torture Archipelago" of Syria sound like Stalin's Gulag Archipelago! Assad's torture archipelago might be an exaggeration of the Syria rebels and the Western intelligence propaganda that supports them. But I am inclined to believe it because I have seen video in which a Syrian army officer beats an injured protester in the ground, and then one of them jumps on top of him with his boots 3-4 times to crush his bones. That kind of brutality matches the CIA's brutality in Guantanamo and Bagram prison in Afghanistan tortures, but at least the CIA doesn't torture Americans.

If Assad feels, or if he is ill-advised by his trusted Syrian Rasputins that he will survive as president by killing and torturing Syrians, I have this warning for him. You won't survive, sir! And you will probably be hunted after you are ousted, and probably share the fate of Leon Trotsky and Anastasio Somoza. It is only a matter of time, and your time is running out! Nikos Retsos, retired professor

[ErnestSpoon]

Oh, oh, let's get all self-righteous and stuff about the government of Bashir al-Assad torturing the citizens of Syria!

But am I too cynical?

Oh, that's right the United States doesn't "torture" people, it's "enhanced interrogation!" And they aren't really "people" but "enemy combatants!" Well, hooray for us!