Syrian Rebels Reportedly Destroyed Religious Sites

By Ali Al-Bassam
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

DAMASCUS, Syria — Last Wednesday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported three incidents in which rebel groups appeared to have intentionally destroyed or allowed the looting of minority religious sites in northern Syria during the months of November and December of 2012.  HRW believes that such actions indicate that the Syrian conflict is becoming more sectarian.

HRW accused Syrian rebels of intentionally looting and destroying religious sites. (Photo Courtesy of RT)

“The destruction of religious sites is furthering sectarian fears…,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East Director of HRW.

Local witnesses had reported that rebels looted two Christian churches in the western governorate of Latakia, a relatively peaceful province of Syria.  Rebels were also accused of destroying a Shi’ite “husseiniya,” a religious site constructed in honor of Hussein, a martyr in Shi’ite tradition, in Zarzour, a village located in the Idlib governorate.  Its windows had been shattered, prayer stones were found all over the floor, walls were charred from flames, and what appeared to be remnants of a burned prayer rug lay on the floor.  HRW found evidence that  linked the attacks on the religious sites to areas that were falling under the rebels’ control.

Footage which was posted on YouTube on December 12 showed rebels celebrating a victory as the husseiniya burned in the background.  In the video, a fighter is seen yelling “The destruction of the dens of the Shi’ites and the Rafida,” a derogatory term used to describe the minority sect of Alawites, from which President Bashar Al-Assad is a member of.

Sunni residents of Zarzour said that the burning of the husseiniya prompted their Shi’ite neighbors to flee from the village.

On December 11, in Jdeideh, a village in the Latakia governorate, a local resident reported to HRW about how gunmen broke into the church and looted it.  During the looting, they shot off multiple rounds within the church, causing heavy structural damage.  HRW confirmed the attack after inspecting the church.  Local rebels denied that they attacked the church.  “While the motivation for the church break-ins may have been theft rather than a religious attack, opposition fighters have a responsibility to protect religious sites in areas under their control from willful damage and theft,” HRW said.

Gunmen also broke into the church in the village of Ghasaniyeh, where they stole gas and diesel fuel.  Apart from a cross on the floor, there were no indications that the building was damaged.

International humanitarian law prohibits parties involved in armed conflicts from attacking religious buildings which are not used for military purposes.  Parties cannot seize, destroy, or willfully damages religious buildings or any other cultural property.  Such attacks are recognized as war crimes.

For further information, please see:
Al Jazeera — Syria Rebels ‘Attacked’ Religious Sites — 24 January 2013
The Daily Star — Syria Rebels Must Protect Religious Sites: HRW — 23 January 2013
Human Rights Watch — Syria: Attacks on Religious Sites Raise Tensions — 23 January 2013

Fate of Five Ahwazi Arab Prisoners at Risk of Imminent Execution Unknown; International Community Should Pressure the Islamic Republic of Iran to Halt the Executions of these Men

Iran Human Rights Documentation Center

23 January 2013 – The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center joins Iranian civil society, Arab rights groups, and groups working towards global abolition of the death penalty to express its deep concern over the imminent execution of five Ahwazi Arab prisoners in the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI).

In a joint statement released today, 30 NGOs including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Shirin Ebadi called for the immediate halt of the executions of five men— Jaber Alboshoka, Mokhtar Alboshoka, Hadi Rashedi, Hashem Shabaninejad and Mohammad Ali Amourinejad.

In recent days, the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights have, respectively, called for a halt to the executions, and expressed concern over the fairness of the trials of the five men and allegations that they were subjected to torture.

The five men were sentenced to death last June.  On Wednesday, January 9, 2013 their families were notified that the death sentences for the five men were upheld by Iran’s Supreme Court. Family members maintain they have no current information about the whereabouts of the five men since they were transferred by security forces from Karoun prison in Ahwaz to an undisclosed location last Friday, January 18.

“Ahwazi Arabs constitute one of the most socially, politically and economically marginalized minority groups in Iran today,” said Gissou Nia, Executive Director of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. “The lack of due process and fair trial guarantees afforded these five men is in part a reflection of the larger bias the central government in Iran demonstrates towards this minority group. The Iranian government must do its utmost to address the patent irregularities in the judicial process for these five men and halt their executions immediately.”

With no official indication of the location and status of the five prisoners, they can be executed at any time.  The international community should take immediate action to prevent the execution of these five men.

For further information please contact:
Gissou Nia
Executive Director
Iran Human Rights Documentation Center
Email: gnia@iranhrdc.org
Phone: +1 203 654 9342

ICTJ World Report: January 2013

Syria Revolution Digest: Tuesday, 22 January 2013

Our Identity Crisis!

As sectarian trends continue to increase and a new conflict pitting Arabs against Kurds explodes, albeit in slow motion, it is becoming increasingly clear that Syrians are going through a major identity crisis with all the trimmings. We may not have a Syria left at the end of this Revolution, but, hopefully, we will end up knowing who we are, or at least more of who we are, at this particular moment in history. Whether we end up liking and accepting ourselves or each other is a different matter. But only people who know and accept who they are, at least at a certain level, can make peace with each other and the world. So, peace will have to wait for a while in our parts, even if the price of war is high. Because the price of ignorance, especially self-ignorance, is even higher.

Today’s Death Toll: 164, including 12 women and 22 children. 71 martyrs were reported in Damascus and its suburbs, including 8 martyrs in Medira and 8 who had been field-executed in Douma; 32 martyrs were reported in Daraa; 14 in Aleppo; 13 in Homs; 11 in Hama; 11 in Idlib; 11 in Deir Ezzor; and 1 in Lattakia (LCCs).

Points of Random Shelling: 278: including 13 sites that were subjected to aerial shelling. Regime forces used barrel bombs on 3 areas across Syria and 1 area was subjected to cluster and thermobaric bombardment. 133 areas were subjected to artillery shelling; 68 areas were subjected to mortar shelling; and 76 areas reported rocket shelling (LCCs).

Clashes: The Free Syrian Army (FSA) clashed with regime forces in 126 locations, managing to down an attack helicopter flying over Koweires Military Airport in Aleppo and seizing control of the club checkpoint near the Daraa Balad gas station. The FSA also managed to target checkpoints at the oil press and canning plant with mortars, and the Hamidieh camp with homemade rockets. The FSA also destroyed a number of personnel carriers and other materiel belonging to the regime in cities and towns across Syria (LCCs).

News

Russia’s Evacuation From Syria Reflects Doubts About Bashar Assad’s Hold On Power In addition to tens of thousands of Russians permanently living in Syria, most of whom are Russian women married to Syrian men and their children, there are also an unspecified number of diplomats and military advisers along with their families. The evacuees were permanent residents not connected to the embassy.

Diplomatic options fade in Syria, as refugees pile up Daily life is mostly spent fending off the cold. There is no electricity, no heat and no running water. Few international aid workers dare to travel to Syria to help… The Turkish government is building another camp that can take up to 3,000 refugees, but that is not much comfort to the more than 40,000 Syrians who are stranded along its border.

US Senators Urge Stronger Response to Syria Crisis Republican Senator John McCain led a delegation of lawmakers that recently returned from a trip to the Middle East and Afghanistan.  At a news conference Tuesday, McCain relayed messages the group received from Syrian opposition leaders and refugees. “We heard desperate pleas for U.S. support and assistance,” said McCain… Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said, “The situation in Syria is getting increasingly dire. And it appears the Assad administration is dug in pretty hard.  So there is a real danger of the warfare prolonging, and while it prolongs having the Syrian state devolve into potentially ethnically-cleansed enclaves, and a huge vacuum left for jihadis and extremists to launch attacks from.”

Rebels in northern Syria pin hopes on airbase’s downfall The siege does underscore one important point: It has taken less than a year for Syria’s rebels to go from being hunted in their homes to now encircling and attacking some of the largest military bases in the country.

Life in Lebanon “horrible” for Palestinians fleeing Syria: U.N. Donors needed to do more to help at least 20,000 Palestinians who have already come in and more than 200 who join them every day, the chief of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Filippo Grandi, told Reuters.

Saudi says negotiated Syria settlement “inconceivable” “Damascus… which has been a city for the longest period of time, is carpet bombed. How can you conceive of the possibility of a negotiated settlement with somebody who does that to his own country, to his own history, to his own people? It is inconceivable to us,” Prince Saud al-Faisal told a news conference. He was speaking after an Arab summit focusing on economic development, which was not attended by Syria.

 

Special Reports

Richard Cohen: Obama’s failure in Syria

In retrospect, this was a war of necessity. It was necessary to avoid a regional calamity, the spread of more violence to Lebanon and Iraq. It was necessary to avoid a humanitarian disaster; great suffering that could have been avoided or at least mitigated. It was necessary to take a stand against barbarity because this is — is it not? — a basic obligation. It was necessary to intervene because we could do so at very little cost… We are talking, simply, of saving lives. It was necessary, finally, because not only must the thugs of this world be held accountable by the world community, they must know they will be held accountable by the world community… This — a furious sense of moral indignation — must return to U.S. foreign policy and be the centerpiece of Obama’s second term. This is no longer a matter of choice. It is a necessity.

Increasingly desperate

A CAMP for displaced people in Atmeh is a good measure of the worsening crisis in Syria. When your correspondent last visited the town, just inside Syria’s northern border with Turkey, in September, hundreds of people were sitting under olive trees hoping to cross into Turkey. Four months later the sea of white tents stretches into the distance. Whole streets and villages from rural Idleb and Aleppo have been transplanted here—almost the only source of comfort in the relentless misery.

Syria’s Kurds: A Struggle Within a Struggle

Syria’s conflict gives its Kurdish population an opening to rectify historic wrongs and push for more autonomy, but facing internal divisions, poor ties with the non-Kurdish opposition and regional rivalries, its challenge is to articulate clear, unified and achievable demands.

Defying Common View, Some Syrian Kurds Fight Assad

A rebel commander seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, he described the choice of a cornered man. His resistance began with peaceful demonstrations, he said. When the government answered with force, his tactics changed. “It was only after they showed that they would kill us that we became armed,” he said. But there is a difference between this story and many others. Mr. Abdulkader is a Kurd, not an Arab, which means his experiences and decisions upend conventional wisdom that holds that the Kurds do not see this as their fight.

The Nonexistent Red Line

In sum: The White House wouldn’t know if Assad were about to use chemical weapons, couldn’t be sure if he had used chemical weapons, and in any case isn’t going to do anything about chemical weapons until Assad leaves. In reality then, the president has no red lines for Assad…

 

Video Highlights

A just released video shows the second rocket as it hits the University of Aleppo compound on January 17, belying the regime’s story of a car bomb attack http://youtu.be/NIZbxvrEZeM

Leaked video: pro-Assad Alawite militias in Deir Ezzor execute a young member of a local FSA unit, with the usual glee http://youtu.be/Km9V2f71rbU

Major Defection: Last week hundreds of soldiers defected from pro-Assad militias fighting in Damascus and her suburbs, most of whom came from a Sunni Arab or Kurdish background hailing from Al-Jazeerah region in Syria’s northeast (the provinces of Raqqah, Deir Ezzor and Al-Hassakeh). Today 450 of these soldiers arrived in the province of Al-Hassakeh and were warmly received by local rebels http://youtu.be/P3K77f5KKk0

Rebels in Idlib Province use homemade missiles in an attack on a local loyalist militia headquarters http://youtu.be/4Pn2ov2KouU

In Medira, Damascus, today’s fallen included many children http://youtu.be/012PyVA5q0U More people were killed in nearby Douma http://youtu.be/7WjbQRqyEZo

To the west, Assad armies keep patrolling the outskirts of the Daraya suburb http://youtu.be/Pc2HDdAqXO0 Sometimes rebels manage to take down some of these tanks http://youtu.be/DLBpKT9bSrQ But the use of MiGs gives Assad the upper hand as usual http://youtu.be/Dkvm8kp0NIg

This leaked video shows pro-Assad militias using missile launchers based in the nearby hills to pound the town of Mouadamiyah http://youtu.be/sPitF6wuTM8 and again at night http://youtu.be/YigQmQ5rqEQ

Meanwhile, the pounding of the town of Zabadani continues http://youtu.be/7negEGSKMaM

In Hama, pro-Assad militias stationed in the Hama Military Airport used missile launchers to pound nearby communities http://youtu.be/VGNDX0bkWiA , http://youtu.be/dnrxaYk0-NM

In Homs City, aerial bombardment against restive neighborhoods continues: Jobar MiG diving for the kill http://youtu.be/kF62FOqfy2s and another dive http://youtu.be/YMZv95-Sops The destruction is immense http://youtu.be/nG29Syb3ohw

Meanwhile, in the neighborhood of Baba Amr, local doctors save the life of another pro-Assad fighter they captured. The man admits that he comes from the majority-Alawite and Shia town of Mukharram. He says he was recruited by pro-Assad militias, that he is poor and that he and his children had no heating oil or food. He asks his children to forgive him in case he didn’t live to see them again. He tells them to pay attention to their school work, not believe the regime’s lies and not watch Syrian state TV http://youtu.be/vXscH1oIMeg

In this video testimony released by Islamist rebels in Ras Al-Ain, a Kurdish man is seen admitting that he is a member of the PKK and that he and his friends are working in tandem with Assad and Iranian security, including Assad’s security chief Muhammad Mansourah. Kurds from the town of Ras Al-Ain, however, belie this testimony and say the man is a local baker and that the testimony is coerced like those of captured activists paraded on Syrian state TV confessing to all sort of crimes after being tortured http://youtu.be/hohiUQBnBk4 Meanwhile, clashes pitting Arab and Kurdish rebels continue http://youtu.be/hohiUQBnBk4

 

US and Canada to Extend Mali Support Mission

By Heba Girgis
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

BAMAKO, Mali—As of this morning, Wednesday, January 23, 2013, the United States Air Force C-17 cargo jets have made about five different flights to Mali. The jets dropped off about 80 French troops and more than 124 tons of supplies to help in the fight against insurgents who are trying to take over the country.

US troops are helping to move equipment from France to Mali. (Photo Courtesy of BBC News)

The United States airlift began two days ago, on Monday, and is expected to continue for another few days. Pentagon press secretary George Little said, “We continue to consult with the French on further steps that we may take as United States government to support their (French) efforts in Mali.”

French military spokesman, Thierry Burkhard, noted that, “the priority is to move heavy, bulky things” such as armored vehicles.

But France and the United States are not the only Western countries involved in the aid. Canada is also expected to extend its own commitment to Mali, the decision, however is still pending some final consultations with other allies also involved in the conflict.

Last week, French President Francois Hollande made a direct request through a telephone call with Prime Minister Stephen Harper asking for an extension of Canada’s air transport commitment. This week Canada received another similar request. This time, the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius asked the Canadian government to help deliver African troops to Mali’s capital. France, currently, has more than 2,000 troops on the ground in Mali. At the same time, troops from neighboring African countries have been arriving almost daily into Bamako.

Just last month, the United Nations approved plans to send in about 3,000 West African troops into Mali to recapture the desert region that had been taken over by Islamist insurgents. Now that France has intervened, the regional force, under Nigerian command, has begun its deployment.

On Monday, Malian forces were able to recapture the central towns of Diabaly and Douentza without any aid. Speaking on this, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said, “This advance by the Malian army toward the cities held by their enemies constitutes a certain military success for the Bamako government and for French forces, who have intervened in support of these operations.”

He further stated his “total confidence” in French forces in a mission that “aims to restore sovereignty to Mali on its territory and to prevent the risk of the constitution of a terrorist sanctuary in the heart of Africa.”

 

For further information, please see:

BBC News – Mali Conflict: US Begins French Troop Airlifts – 22 January 2013

BBC News – UK to Consider Boosting French Mali Operation Support – 22 January 2013

CBC News – Canada Expected to Extend Mission in Mali – 22 January 2013

CNN News – United States, Italy Lend Support for French in Mali – 22 January 2013