Report Prepared by Syrian Network for Human Rights
Date of Report : 29/6/2013
Period covered : Since the Syrian Uprising to 10/6/2013
Contents:
1- Methodology and introduction
2- Report:
First: Syrian Government’s Armed Troops
Second: Armed Opposition
3- Legal Conclusions
4- Demands and Recommendations
Methodology and Introduction:
Syrian Network for Human Rights is one of the key sources to the United Nations in documenting the victims of Syrian Armed Conflicts, as pointed out by the United Nation’s reports issued in its statistics of conflict victims and pointed out in the analysis provided by HRDA; appointed by UN to oversee the issuance of Statistics of conflicts victims around the world.
SNHR depends on high criteria when documenting, and on its members who are deployed in all of Syrian Governorates.
By conducting interviews with hundreds of torture victims by Syrian Government’s Armed Troops, they all expressed methods of unified and systematic torturing methods in all of the Syrian Governorates, which led to the death of 2,630 civilians under torture.
The committee against torture confirmed that Each State Party shall ensure that its competent authorities continue to provide a prompt and impartial investigation, wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed in any territory under its jurisdiction. Otherwise, the state will be responsible for its officials, and will be held responsible for unauthorized acts such as these.
Human Rights Committee, General Comment 20, Article 7 (Forty-fourth session, 1992) paragraph 11:
11. In addition to describing steps to provide the general protection against acts prohibited under article 7 to which anyone is entitled, the State party should provide detailed information on safeguards for the special protection of particularly vulnerable persons. It should be noted that keeping under systematic review interrogation rules, instructions, methods and practices as well as arrangements for the custody and treatment of persons subjected to any form of arrest, detention or imprisonment is an effective means of preventing cases of torture and ill-treatment. To guarantee the effective protection of detained persons, provisions should be made for detainees to be held in places officially recognized as places of detention and for their names and places of detention, as well as for the names of persons responsible for their detention, to be kept in registers readily available and accessible to those concerned, including relatives and friends. To the same effect, the time and place of all interrogations should be recorded, together with the names of all those present and this information should also be available for purposes of judicial or administrative proceedings. Provisions should also be made against incommunicado detention. In that connection, States parties should ensure that any places of detention be free from any equipment liable to be used for inflicting torture or ill-treatment. The protection of the detainee also requires that prompt and regular access be given to doctors and lawyers and, under appropriate supervision when the investigation so requires, to family members.
Report:
According to SNHR estimations, the Syrian Government arrested at least 215,000 Syrian citizens, including 9,000 under the age of 18 and 4,500 women (including 1,200 college students).
Among the 215,000 arrested, there are at least 70,000 who disappeared.
All this, according to estimates conducted by Syrian Network for Human Rights, it is very difficult to get all the detainees names because of the refusal of hundreds of families to provide us with statements of their sons out of fear of torture. Yet despite all the difficulties, we could document nearly 80,000 names of detainees registered by name, place and date.
The four main Syrian Security Branches are:
Military Security, Air Security, General Security, and Political Security. All have practiced various kinds of torturing methods against all detainees. Degrees of torture vary between detainees, but in general, they are considered to be the worst and most horrible methods that violate human rights, dignity, and all international conventions.
Practicing Systematic daily torturing methods for long hours led to the death of 2,630 victims; including 85 children, 27 women, 114 Syrian Free Army members (less than 5 % and all the other victims are civilian activists, reporters, human rights activists and protestors). According to statistic conducted by SNHR since the beginning of the Syrian revolution to 10 June 2013, and they are among the 92,901 victims that were announced by the UN’s newest statistic, but the statistics regarding victims killed under torture continue to increase to the date of this report.
The following link shows names and details for victims tortured to death by Syrian Government’s Armed Troops:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9Bj18tlYYKBYVpXcHVHS2ZMTkk/edit
Distribution of victims tortured to death by governorate as follows:
Homs: 609
Damascus countryside: 465
Daraa: 410
Idlib: 273
Hama: 199
Damascus: 266
Aleppo: 143
Lattakia: 61
Dier Alzoor: 90
Lattakia: 63
Qunaitra: 34
Other Nationalities: 29
Hasaka: 20
Tartous: 14
Raqqa: 5
Swidaa: 1
Torturing methods that have been documented by hundreds of tortured survivors’ testimonies. There are 46 cases divided into three sections:
(Note: SNHR received testimonies, and photos showing signs of torture for those victims)
First: Torture Methods; 9 Techniques
Second: Various Methods of Torture (22 cases)
Third: Psychological Torture (14 cases)
First: Torture Methods : SNHR could document 9 techniques
1- Ghost Technique (Shabeh position): Hanging victims to the bathroom ceiling from their wrists while they stand on a chair, then removing the chair so the victim will stand on the ground on his/her big toe.
Another case of Shabeh, known as fly ghost, where they tightened one of his/her feet with the victim’s hand using the same rope for many hours and even day or two, causing hands to inflate or even be cut.
2- Tire position (Dulab) the victim is forced to bend at the waist and stick his head, neck, legs and sometimes arms into the inside of a car tire, then start beating him on different parts of his body.
3- Flying Carpet position (Basat Al-Reeh) involves tying the victim down to a two section plank so that the detainee’s hands and feet are tied to the front and back of the plank, and his face on the base of it. Then, the front side of the plank is lifted as to fold it so that the body of the detainee is folded until his head touches his feet. This leads to a dangerous stretch in the ligaments and nerves of the spine, and results in the most dreadful kind of pain a person can suffer from. Meanwhile, another person beats the detainee.
4- Crucifixion: The hands and legs of the detainee are tightened in the position of a crucified person then is beaten specifically on the genitals.
5- Hanging: The hands are tied behind the back, then the detainee is hanged and beaten with sticks and wires.
6- Smashing: Where a detainee’s head is placed between the wall and the door of the prison, then the door is closed on the head of the detainee.
7- Electrocution: The detainee is seated on a metal chair, and is then electrified.
8- Electric shocks to various parts of body.
9- The German chair (Al-Kursi al-Almani): A metal chair with moving parts to which the victim is tied to by his/her hands and feet. The breaks of the chair bends backwards causing acute hyperextension of the spine and severe pressure on the victim’s neck and limbs.
Second: Various Methods of Torture (22 cases)
1- Using all methods of beating on all parts of the body with different tools, such as stakes and electric cables, called colloquially (Robai), to beat on the soles and the tread of the head.
2- Completely uprooting fingernails.
3- Removing hair from different parts of the body.
4- Cutting out flesh with forceps from sensitive organs.
5- Raping male and female detainees.
6- Forcing the detainee to rape his/her cell mate.
7- Cutting off some parts of the detainee body; such as the finger, flesh, or stabbing the back or stomach.
8- Burning detainee’s skin using chemical acids or cigarettes.
9- Exposing the detainee to extreme cold after being force to take off all his/her clothes.
10- Depriving the detainee of complete medical care, as there is a lack of medical care in large number of prisons.
11- Preventing the detainee to use the toilet but only once or twice a day, forcing him/her sometimes to urinate on himself/herself. If the detainee is allowed to use the toilet, the period may not exceed a minute. The detainee is also refused a shower, and from going out for a breath of fresh air.
12- Keeping a large number of detainees in a small cell (keeping 45 detainees in a 15 meter cell, Air Force Intelligence, Aleppo).
13- Pouring cold water over his/her body after being hit and wounded.
14- Cracking ribs.
15- Insufficient amount of water and food which is not enough for a quarter of detainees.
16- Having to stand on one foot and be hung up from hands for a successive amount of days.
17- Using underground cells without ventilation.
18- Pouring boiling oil or water over his/her legs.
19- Cutting the ear with clippers meant for trimming trees.
20- Smashing ears and noses with a mallet.
21- Hanging up and tying something heavy to the penis.
22- Electric shocking, especially in breasts, knees, and elbows.
Third: Psychological Torture (14 cases):
SNHR documented the most systematic practice with 14 cases:
1- Forcing the detainee to watch his/her mate being raped.
2- Threatening the detainee that they will rape him/her.
3- Forcing the detainee to watch his/her mates tortured to death.
4- Threatening the detainee with the arrest of his wife, mother or sister and raping or torturing her in front of his eyes, then making him see naked female detainees in the prison.
5- Threatening the detainee with death through torture or slaughtering him/her with knives.
6- Offending and assaulting the detainee`s religious beliefs.
7- Putting male and female detainees in the same prison, and in some cases, stripping them in front of the executioners.
8- Putting detainees and dying people in the same cell.
9- Placing detainees with dead people in the same cell.
10- Assaulting the detainee and his family with obscene insults.
11- Forcing the detainee to admit to crimes he did not commit under the threat of increasing the torture.
12- Commanding the detainee to prostrate for Assad`s portrait.
13- Telling the detainee that he/she is going to be released and opening the cell door, just to bring him/her back for torture.
14- Taking the detainee to the prison’s doctor for treatment. The doctor hits him/her on painfully, then the detainee is taken back to be re-tortured. So that he/she will not ask to see the doctor again.
Syrian Army , Shabiha and Security Forces practiced more horrible methods like cutting off genitals or ears. We have more than 100 films and recordings, where security elements and Shabiha filmed these operations while they were having fun with them.
Unfortunately, all of those cases do not receive the same reaction or sentiment similar to the video of the brutal crime committed by a solider in Syrian Free Army, which different media agencies all around the world focused on. Not to mention, the President and Foreign Minister of Russia, Iran’s Foreign Minister, the Lebanese Hezbullah Secretary General, who all knew and even participated in worse systematic crimes.
Following: Torture videos committed by Syrian Government’s Armed Troops in all of the Syrian Governorates. SNHR has more videos and will issue them in separate reports to confirm the credibility of what we mentioned.
Warning: These videos contain very cruel scenes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFAxEdEfl9w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJpzsbltU0g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwYMLGKFQQQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01bLOmIBNLY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLv-0ZvZVYg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iMrjAQIQpA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvRUOn7nbmc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdf6u1fyRgQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPj3OsjUqIE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nakq6EMhHYM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3purybWTsbE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwYMLGKFQQQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL0ASgGOG5g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnAwo8ryVPE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmfJypx6ayg
Legal Conclusions
United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners:
These principles are based on and derived by international humanitarian law, the international law of human rights, and on the basis of humane treatment and non-discrimination. Protection principle No. 7 has particular importance, especially important as calls to investigate all cases of ill-treatment of detainees and punish the perpetrators.
Customary IHL states:
Chapter 32 Fundamental guarantees
Rule 90 Torture, cruel or inhuman treatment and outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment, are prohibited.
Rule 91 Corporal punishment is prohibited.
Chapter 37 Persons Deprived of Their Liberty
Rule 118 Persons deprived of their liberty must be provided with adequate food, water, clothing, shelter and medical attention.
Rule 119 Women who are deprived of their liberty must be held in quarters separate from those of men, except where families are accommodated as family units, and must be under the immediate supervision of women.
Rule 120 Accommodation for Children Deprived of Their Liberty
Rule 120 Children who are deprived of their liberty must be held in quarters separate from those of adults, except where families are accommodated as family units.
Based on the foregoing:
1- SNHR emphasizes that torture committed by the Syrian Government’s Armed Forces is part of a systematic widespread policy. The proof is derived from the murder of at least 4 civilians with torture. This constitutes a flagrant violation of the state’s obligations to International Human Rights Law and the International Law of Human Rights.
2- The torture is systematically practiced in large scale attacks carried out by the Syrian Government’s Armed Troops and Shabiha against civilians. They are aware of such attacks, considered as crimes against humanity.
3- There is a large involvement of Shabiha militia affiliated to Syrian Government in torturing citizens in unofficial detention centers in various governorates, where they raped and tortured abducted women.
4- Syrian Government’s Armed Forces committed a wide range of acts of torture under non-international armed conflicts, which is considered a war crime according to Article 8 of the Rome Statute.
5- The Syrian Government didn’t comply with customary IHL or any local or international law regarding torturing issues, and acted carless over all international norms and laws.
Second: Armed Oppositions:
SNHR documented torturing cases in centers controlled by the armed opposition. It led to death cases, in particular, in the cases of Shabiha raping women after breaking into their homes. Those are the most documented cases involving death by torture.
Although the armed opposition practice torture against some civilians, media activist cause their objections to some practices by some elements of the armed factions but did not live up to degree murder under torture.
Armed opposition also practiced methods of torture with some officers and soldiers whose arrested from government forces in order to obtain information.
There are also some of torture practices on a sectarian basis and considering that approximately 98% of the security chiefs are from the Alawite sect, a number of practices came as a reaction to those who torturing detainees and people in the security branches.
Legal conclusions against Armed Oppositions :
The applicable law in Syrian armed conflict is Customary IHL , where armed opposition violated the rules of customary IHL , although the other cases are individual , but we are in SNHR expressing our concern that this acts will spread in other areas
Accordingly, the armed opposition and other factions fighting have been committed in acts of torture, a war crime, and violated their obligations under Article 3 common as the parties to the conflict in Syria.
SNHR didn’t document any case of torturing women and children.
Condemnation and responsibilities
As an organization concerned with the defense of human rights, the Syrian Network for Human Rights condemns in the strongest terms and in the greatest phrases, all methods of torture under all forms, which date back to many methods used in primitive times, and the first eras of the Middle Ages, and stresses that these acts of violence cannot be issued by a person with humanitarian values. It holds the Syrian Government Troops, with all its symbols and forms, and all of those who are allied and cooperate with, and support Syrian Government Troops financially or morally fully responsible for what happened and is happening, as well as all the reactions and consequences of arrest and torture.
Not to mention that the international community’s and UN’s attitude of standing and watching idly as violations of international law occur in Syria is a stain against those who legislated the rules. The lack of implementation to put an end to dictatorships that violate and offend human dignity and encourages dictatorships to move forward in their policies criminal lack of undeterred is appalling.
Demands and Recommendations:
1- Demands
According to Rule No. 124 of Customary IHL
Rule 124. ICRC Access to Persons Deprived of Their Liberty
A. In international armed conflicts, the ICRC must be granted regular access to all persons deprived of their liberty in order to verify the conditions of their detention and to restore contacts between those persons and their families.
SNHR as a human rights organization demands our colleagues in ICRC to do their duty entrusted to them as the only body authorized to visit detention centers and cellars expended and quickly visits, and has full liberty to select the places it wishes to visit and must be able to interview the detainees without accompaniments by the Syrian Government Troops.
We call upon the International Committee, Security Council and United Nations to live up to the human and humanity laws and constitutions and referral criminal and murderers to ICC.
All city organizations around the world to exert pressure on the Security Council and all its members to refer criminals in Syria to ICC, and to be on the amount of responsibility of torture and kill exposed the Syrian people.
2- Recommendations:
Human Rights Council:
1- Pay more serious attention to death by torture cases, which are considered as the worst type of crimes.
2- Demand the Security Council and the concerned international institutions to hold their responsibilities in this serious matter.
3- Pressure the Syrian Government Troops to stop torturing and unlock the prisons and detention centers to see detainees and know their conditions.
4- Hold allies and supporters of the Syrian Government Troops: Russia, Iran, and China, morally and physically responsible for the Syrian Government Troops’ excesses in this regard.
Security Council:
1- Decide to refer all the criminals and the involved to the ICC.
2- Warn the Syrian Government Troops of the repercussions of using brutal methods on the stability of civil peace and coexistence between the people of the same society.
Arab League:
1- Demand the Human Rights Council and United Nations to give this serious issue the right attention and follow up with its developments.
2- Political and diplomatic pressure on the Syrian Government Troops’ main allies – Russia, Iran and China – to prevent them from continuously providing cover and international and political protection for all the crimes committed against the Syrian people and hold them morally and physically responsible for all the excesses of the Syrian Government Troops.
3- Serious attention of this case and give it high priority, and try to take care of torture victims’ families.
Transitional Syrian Government Troops:
1- Media and Political deserved attention of this case, and continuously raised in Syrian Friends Conferences.
2- Demand the Human Rights Council and United Nations to give this serious issue the right attention and follow up.
3- Form specialized committees to follow up the conditions of detainees families and care of them financially and morally.
4- Form specialized committees to provide moral and psychological support to rehab victims detainees coming out of torture headquarters.
5- Condemnation, accounting and follow up on torture committed by opposition armed factions.
International Commission of Inquiry:
The International Commission of Inquiry to describe the facts as I received completely and provide the legal duty of the violations carried out by the Syrian government toward the Syrian people and increase the members of the committee specialists affairs Syrian commensurate with the size of the violations basis, and take reports of Syrian human rights organizations that have members of specialists by on Syrian territory into account.
