By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
United Nations Headquarters, United Nations – Horrific images of deceased Syrian detainees killed by the Assad regime as a result of torture and severe malnutrition during the county’s civil war were presented at the United Nations Tuesday. The images were among some 55,000 photographs taken by a Syrian police photographer known as Caesar and smuggled out of Syria, the images document some of the most horrific crimes committed by the Assad regime including torture. The United Nations Security Council spent more than two hours viewing the photographs on Tuesday Morning. The photographs were shown to the Council in an effort by France to refer the Syrian Case to the International Criminal Court.
The United States Ambassador tot eh United Nations, Samantha Power, responded to the images after she saw them at a closed meeting of the U.N. Security Council, “The gruesome images of corpses bearing marks of starvation, strangulation and beatings and today’s chilling briefing indicate that the Assad regime has carried out systematic, widespread and industrial killing.” She also said that; “nobody who sees these images will ever be the same. The perpetrators of these monstrous crimes must be held accountable, and the international community must unite in the face of such horrors.”
While working at a military hospital from September 2011 to August 2013, Caesar photographed the bodies of detainees from three regime detention centers in the Damascus area. His smuggled photographs were passed over to the Syrian National Movement, which is backed by Qatar. Ten of the 55,000 photographs of roughly 11,000 Syrians tortured by the Assad regime were released to the public in a study called the Caesar report. The study was funded by the Gulf state of Qatar, a major supporter of the Syrian opposition.
Two of the report’s authors, David Crane, chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone and founder of Impunity Watch, and Doctor Stuart Hamilton, a British forensic pathologist briefed the Council on Tuesday. Crane stated that the photographs document evidence of killing on an industrial scale by the Assad regime. He stressed that rebel forces are also “committing international crimes” in Syria. “We’re well beyond a good-guy, bad-guy scenario here,” he said, pointing out that human beings are killing one another “at a scale that has not been seen since Rwand
Tuesday’s briefing came a day after The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay condemned the treatment of detained persons saying that “in armed conflict, torture constitutes a war crime. When it is used in a systematic or widespread manner, which is almost certainly the case in Syria, it also amounts to a crime against humanity.” She continued “I urge the Government and armed opposition groups in Syria to immediately halt the use of torture and ill-treatment, and to release all those who have been arbitrarily detained in conditions that clearly breach international human rights standards. Those detained must be treated humanely.”
The comments come as her office issued a paper containing detailed testimony from victims and witnesses, describing systematic patterns of torture and ill-treatment against individuals in Government facilities, as well as documenting reports of torture by other armed groups.
For the Caesar Report please see:
For further information please see:
BBC World News – Syria Crisis: ‘Torture’ Photos Shown To UN Security Council – 15 April 2014
Fox News – Horror of Syria’s War Displayed At Un – 15 April 2014
The Guardian – Syrian Torture Images to Be Examined By UN Security Council – 15 April 2014
The New York Times – At U.N., A Grim Viewing of Alleged Syrian Torture – 15 April 2014
United Nations News Centre – UN Rights Chief Condemns Rampant Use of Torture By Syrian Forces, Opposition Groups – 14 April 2014
