The British-based international human rights organization, Amnesty International has said in a new report that 17,723 people have died in Syrian state jails since the outbreak of ongoing civil war in the country.
The civil war in Syria is almost in its fifth year. Rebels backed by United States led Western countries, and Sunni countries in the Middle East, led by Saudi Arabia, want to remove the country’s president Bashar al-Assad from power.
Assad on the other hand, is supported by Russia and Iran. Especially with Russia behind him, his grip has tightened on the country, and is refusing to step down. Before Russia’s intervention in the war, ISIS and rebels had seized majority part of the country. However, recent Russian bombardments have allowed Assad’s troops to retake the majority of the lost territories, but the bombardments and the frequent shellings have affected the civilian population badly.
In this latest report by Amnesty International, the Syrian government faces accusations of carrying out systematic killing of opposition members in jail.
According to the report, the estimated 17,723 deaths are civilians imprisoned by the Syrian government in the country’s jails, since the beginning of the war. The report said the deaths occurred between March 2011 and December 2015, when the uprising by rebels moved against Assad. According to Amnesty International, this is the equivalent to the deaths of 10 people each day – or more than 300 a month.
Amnesty International claimed the report was based on comprehensive interviews with 65 torture survivors, who have been pardoned by the Syrian government as part of a previous unsuccessful peace deal between the government and rebels.
The people interviewed detailed systematic use of rape and beatings by prison guards, subjecting victims to severe pain, according to Amnesty International.
Former detainees told Amnesty investigators how so-called welcome parties have been instituted in prisons across the country, where ritual beatings using metal bars and electric cables are the norm. These former detainees also revealed that new detainees are subjected to security checks that often involve women being sexually assaulted by male guards.
A former detainee, identified in the report as Samer from the city of Hama, located 213 km north of the Damascus capital explained the torture. “They treated us like animals. They wanted people to be as inhuman as possible. I saw the blood; it was like a river… I never imagined humanity would reach such a low level.”
Another inmate, identified with the fictitious name Ziad, described how he also witnessed the cruel death of seven people in a day, after the ventilation stopped working at an intelligence agency detention centre. He said “they began to kick us to see who was alive and who wasn’t.”
Other detainees also described being forced into a rubber tire or whipped on the soles of their feet. The report revealed that these abused prisoners are routinely denied access to medical care and prevented from washing properly, leading to a complete deterioration of their health status, contributing to their deaths.
Director of Amnesty International in the Middle East and North Africa, Philip Luther said these heinous crimes were committed purely against opposition civilians who opposed the rule of Assad.
“For decades, Syrian government forces have used torture as a means to crush their opponents. Today, it is being carried out as part of a systematic and widespread attack directed against anyone suspected of opposing the government in the civilian population and amounts to crimes against humanity,” he said.
After publishing the report, Amnesty International called on the United States and Russia – the two superpowers influencing the war – to address the findings in the report.
The war has affected the Syrian civilian population. More than half of the country’s 22 million people have been forced out of their homes. Media estimate the death toll, since the war began in 2011, can be put at 280,000. However, recently the United Nations special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura estimated that the actual death toll could be as high as 400,000.
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This is a completely biased article demonized Assad and the legitimately elected government. The rebel opposition is vastly foreign mercenaries fighting for money. The rebel opposition is the aggressor which threw the entire country into chaos with only a minority of actual Syrians fighting against Assad. Soo of course these traitors and foreign invaders will try to further demonize their enemy.. they are lucky that any of them made it out alive at all after being caught or surrendering.
These are mostly Sunni’s and extreme Sharia law Islamist who HATE the Alawites for their less strict protocols with women and general culture.
Syrians as a majority are peaceful and non-extreme in their interpretations of the koran with many coptic Orthodox Christians comprising the population too.
Why doesn’t Amnesty condemn the US, Nato and their allies Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar for flooding Syria with cutthroat extremists to topple the Assad government and replace it with a puppet??
Why don’t they point out the hypocrisy and betrayal of the US arming terrorists who they sent their sons and daughters to die fighting against in Iraq and elsewhere?? Of all the accusations that could be made ffs this is what you come up with?
I’ve seen video of the tire torture, and it didn’t look fun. It wasn’t government forces using the technique though, it was the opposition. That’s just one case, and maybe they both have used the method, but the government isn’t sawing heads off with pocket knives.