Syria Denies Torturing and Killing Thousands of Detainees
What's This?
A woman named Aida cries as she recovers from severe injuries, after the Syrian army shelled her house in Idlib, northern Syria on March 10, 2012. Aida's husband and two children were killed in the attack.
Image: Rodrigo Abd, File/Associated Press
The Syrian government has denied its systematic torturing and killing thousands of detainees, after a report documenting the alleged war crimes in grizzly detail surfaced earlier this week.
Syria's Justice Ministry blasted the report as "baseless," and said it is "fake, fabricated and is not based on evidence." The government's denial comes amid a week of unsuccessful peace talks between rebel factions and President Bashar al-Assad's regime in Geneva.
"The report is a mere gathering of photos of unidentified persons," reads a Justice Ministry statement posted on Syria's state-run media organization.
The report in question, a 31-page document, was prepared by a team of war crime prosecutors at the behest of the British law firm Carter-Ruck. It is is based largely on the testimony of an anonymous Syrian government defector given the alias "Caesar,” reportedly a photographer with the Syrian military police.
It wasn't just Caesar's word, though; he also provided 27,000 photos that he smuggled out of the country on memory sticks. Caesar brought the images to members of the Syrian National Movement, a rebel group funded by the government of Qatar.
Qatar, which has come out in support of the Syrian rebels, paid for Carter-Ruck to write the report to access the authenticity of Caesar's testimony and photographs.
Aside from questioning the credibility of the photos and photographer, the Syrian government said the report was "politicized and [lacked] objectivity and professionalism.”
The experts who prepared the report deemed Caesar and his evidence as credible, and said it was proof that Assad's regime used "many forms of torture" on prisoners and killed them in a way that was "systematic, ordered, and directed from above."
CNN and The Guardian both published the report Monday. It's available to view online (PDF), but beware that it contains extremely graphic images.
The Syrian civil war has been raging on for nearly three years. In July, the UN pegged the death toll at around 100,000, but the agency recently stopped updating its death toll because the numbers are difficult to verify.
Delegations for the two sides met in Geneva for peace talks this week, but the meeting has largely been a failure as the talks appear to be on the brink of collapse. Anti-government forces have reportedly refused to negotiate until the government agrees that the purpose of the meeting is to replace Assad.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
Topics: Syria, US & World, war, World
0 comments: