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Al-Ahram Weekly
3 days ago
- Politics
- Al-Ahram Weekly
UN commission finds violence against Syria Alawites likely included 'war crimes' - Region
A UN commission investigating sectarian bloodshed in Syria's Alawite heartland documented systematic violence at the hands of government forces and allied groups, warning Thursday that some of the acts could constitute war crimes. The violence in March unfolded along Syria's predominantly Alawite Mediterranean coast, where security personnel and their allies were accused of carrying out summary executions, mostly targeting civilians from the religious minority, with a war monitor saying more than 1,700 people were killed. The UN commission said in its report Thursday that the violence committed by "members of the interim government forces and private individuals operating alongside or in proximity to them... followed a systematic pattern across multiple, widespread locations". "The violations included acts that likely amount to war crimes," it said. The commission documented cases of "murder, torture and inhumane acts related to the treatment of the dead, widespread looting and burning of homes all of which displaced tens of thousands of civilians". Syria's new authorities have accused gunmen loyal to ousted ruler Bashar al-Assad of instigating the violence by launching deadly attacks that killed dozens of security personnel. The UN commission also found that pro-Assad forces were implicated in the violence. Around 200,000 pro-government military reinforcements converged on the area, according to Damascus. Human rights groups and international organisations have said entire families were killed, including women, children and the elderly. Gunmen stormed homes and asked residents whether they were Alawite or Sunni before killing or sparing them, they said. The UN commission documented similar cases in which men were "identified as belonging to the Alawi sect and then separated from the women and children before being led outside to be shot". 'Deeply disturbing' During his rule, Assad -- who is himself an Alawite -- had cultivated an image as a defender of minorities, even as his authoritarian tendencies plunged the country into civil war. Since his December ouster at the hands of Islamist-led rebels, violations like those on the coast have raised questions about the new authorities' ability to provide security and manage sectarian tensions. The UN commission -- which said it had been granted "unfettered access" to the area by the post-Assad government -- based its findings on more than 200 interviews with victims and witnesses. It said there were "reasonable grounds to believe" that members of the security forces and other private individuals engaged in "serious violations of international human rights law". "The scale and brutality of the violence documented in our report is deeply disturbing," said commission chair Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, urging the government to hold those responsible to account. "While dozens of alleged perpetrators of violations have reportedly since been arrested, the scale of the violence documented in our report warrants expanding such efforts." The commission said it "continues to receive information about ongoing violations in many of the affected areas, including abductions of women, arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances". It said it had "found no evidence of a governmental policy or plan to carry out such attacks", though their systematic nature "in certain locations may be indicative of an organisational policy within certain factions or groups". Commissioner Lynn Welchman called for greater protections for affected communities, as well as screening processes to keep perpetrators out of the ranks of the security forces. In its own inquiry, a Syrian committee formed by the authorities documented "serious violations against civilians on March 7, 8 and 9, including murder, premeditated murder, looting, destruction and burning of homes, torture and sectarian insults", according to a report released last month. The committee confirmed "the names of 1,426 dead, including 90 women", and identified "298 individuals by name" who were suspected of involvement in the violations. Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
DW
11-07-2025
- DW
Kidnapped, abused: Reports of missing Alawite women in Syria – DW – 07/11/2025
Dozens of Syrian Alawite women are missing — thought to have been abducted or worse. Motives behind the suspected abductions are thought to be political and criminal. Nora looks into the camera, her baby on her lap. She looks thin, her hair and eyebrows have been shaved off and she has scars on her face. The first pictures of the woman, taken after her release from captivity, were immediately spread on social media. Nora — her real name has been withheld for security and privacy reasons — is one of dozens of women from the Syrian Alawite minority thought to have been kidnapped. She has since left the country. Nora says she was held in a basement for around a month, where she was physically and psychologically brutalized. She was in the coastal city of Jableh, with her 11-month-old baby, on the way to an aid center when she was stopped by a car with Idlib license plates, filled with masked men. They asked her where she came from and when she said she was Alawite, she was dragged into the car and blindfolded. "Every day I was abused and beaten, so much so that I lost consciousness," Nora told DW. While imprisoned, her baby was taken away from her and she was told she should sign a marriage contract. "I refused to do so, I'm already married," she explained. "After that they treated me with even more brutality." Photos of her beatings were sent to her family as a way to blackmail them into sending ransom money. After her family paid a large ransom, Nora was set free. Today she lives outside of Syria and is being treated for serious gynecological problems. Nora's story has been repeated elsewhere. News agency Reuters has reported on other abductions of Alawite women and conducted detailed interviews with families of the missing women. "Detailed interviews with the families of 16 of the missing women and girls found that seven of them are believed to have been kidnapped, with their relatives receiving demands for ransoms ranging from $1,500 to $100,000," Reuters reported. "There has been no word on the fate of the other nine." The United Nations' Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic has also documented several cases. The commission "documented abductions by unknown individuals of at least six Alawi women this spring in several Syrian governorates," the chair of the commission Paulo Sergio Pinheiro told the UN Human Rights Council at the end of last month. "The whereabouts of at least two of these women remain unknown, while the commission has received credible reports of more abductions. Investigations into some of these incidents were opened by the interim authorities." At the time of writing, Syria's Ministry of the Interior had not replied to enquires on the subject, nor did they reply to Reuters' enquiries. Syrian activist Bassel Younus, who lives in Sweden, told DW he's documented around 40 missing women. He monitors human rights abuses in Syria and notes that the majority of the women abducted were from the Alawite community. The Alawite minority has come under attack since the ousting of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, whose family — the long time authoritarian leaders of the country — come from the Alawite community themselves. Some Islamist extremists see Alawites as apostates. Other Syrians believe the Alawites to have been supporters of the country's former dictator. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video In March, Syria saw a major outbreak of violence against the Alawite community after supporters of ousted President Bashar Assad launched attacks on the new Syrian security forces. Hundreds of the security forces were killed. In the ensuing violence, an estimated further 1,500 people were killed and it's thought that at least some of the perpetrators had links to the new Syrian government. The country's interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa created a committee to investigate the violence but as yet, it has produced no results. The incidents with Alawite women are not a coincidence, Younus said. "They are a symbol of the subjugation of an entire community," he explained. Nora also recalls being called names, like "pig" and "infidel," while she was in captivity. DW attempted to speak with more than a dozen victims' families over the course of several weeks, although many of them didn't want to go on the record due to fear, shame or uncertainty. Sami, a young man from a village near the west Syrian city of Tartus, was one of the few that would speak to media, albeit with his last name kept confidential. His 28-year-old sister, Iman — her name has also been changed to protect her identity — disappeared without a trace after she drove into the city one day. Shortly afterwards the family got a call from an international phone number in which an anonymous voice told them: "forget Iman, she will never return." Sami contacted the local police but they told him that in many of these cases, the women were having a secret love affair and had simply run away from their families. But a few days later, the kidnapper got in touch again and this time demanded a five-figure ransom. The family managed to borrow the money and sent it to Turkey using the so-called "hawala" system, an informal network of money transfers that relies on private individuals passing cash onwards. That makes trying to trace where the ransom money ended up difficult, although documents sighted by DW show that the first recipients were Syrian refugees in Turkey. But for Sami and his family, paying the money didn't help. After they sent the cash, contact was broken off and there's been no further sign of Iman. Maya, 21, is another young woman who was kidnapped, together with her younger sister, near Tartus. Her name has also been changed to protect her privacy. In March the two girls were on the way to do some shopping when they were stopped by masked men with guns. "They asked us if we were Alawite or Sunni," Maya says. "When we said 'Alawite,' they pulled us into a van without license plates." They were blindfolded and driven for what seemed like hours. During the trip, they were insulted as "unbelievers" and as remnants of the Assad regime. The kidnappers told them they were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of their colleagues, anti-Assad fighters, Maya remembers. The sisters were held in a basement and Maya says they were frightened they would be sold as slaves. Syrian social media is buzzing with suggestions that the kidnapped Alawite women are being sold at "slave markets," in the same way that female members of the Yazidi minority were "sold" by the extremist "Islamic State" group when they came to power in Iraq and Syria. However it is also clear that a lot of Assad regime supporters, both inside and outside the country, are pushing these kinds of rumors for their own political ends. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video "So far we have no evidence that Alawite women have been systematically enslaved, as was the case with Yazidi women back then," Bassam Alahmad, executive director of Syrians for Truth and Justice, told DW. But he says religious affiliation is increasingly playing a role in kidnappings and murders. "Alawite women are now being targeted because of their religion and there's a parallel to the Yazidi women in this," he explained. The heart of the problem though, he adds, is that the Alawite community is being targeted for real or assumed links to the Assad regime. Maya and her sister were eventually released. It is unclear why they were let go but after two months, they were allowed to return to their family. They survived, although many other women are still missing.
Arab News
27-01-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
UN report details torture, arbitrary detention, crimes against humanity carried out by former Assad regime
NEW YORK: A new report from the UN Syria Commission of Inquiry paints a chilling picture of widespread abuses by the former Syrian government during the first decade of civil war in the country. The commission's findings, released on Monday, highlight the systematic use of arbitrary detention, torture, and enforced disappearances aimed at crushing dissent. These acts, described as crimes against humanity and war crimes, represent some of the most severe violations of international law during the Syrian conflict. The overthrow of the former government and the release of prisoners from its torture chambers mark a dramatic change for Syrians, 'something almost unthinkable just two months ago,' said the commission. 'We stand at a critical juncture. The transitional government and future Syrian authorities can now ensure these crimes are never repeated,' said Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, chair of the commission, adding that the scale of the brutality is 'staggering.' 'We hope our findings from almost 14 years of investigations will help end impunity for these patterns of abuse.' Titled 'Web of Agony: Arbitrary Detention, Torture, and Ill-Treatment in the Syrian Arab Republic,' the report draws on over 2,000 witness testimonies, including more than 550 interviews with survivors of torture. The commission's investigation, which spans nearly 14 years, offers an unprecedented, comprehensive insight into the horrific violations inside Syria's detention facilities and the profound 'legacy of trauma and suffering for the suffering people.' The report details a wide array of torture methods employed by the Syrian authorities, including severe beatings, electric shocks, mutilation, sexual violence, and psychological torment. Detainees were subjected to prolonged periods of isolation, denied medical care, and often left to die from malnutrition, disease, or injuries. In some cases, survivors reported that bodies were left in cells for days, further compounding the suffering. The report describes in chilling detail the pattern of 'torture and cruel, degrading, inhumane treatment that former State forces inflicted on detained men, women, boys, and girls.' These include severe beatings, electric shocks, burning, pulling out nails, damaging teeth, rape, sexual violence including mutilation, prolonged stress positions, deliberate neglect and denial of medical care, exacerbating wounds, and psychological torture. Survivors and witnesses told the commission how prisoners, enduring torture injuries, malnutrition, disease, and illness, were left to die slowly in excruciating pain or were taken away to be executed. Food rations were scarce or tainted, there was a shortage of clean drinking water and adequate clothing, and prisoners had so little space they were unable to lie down to sleep and were forced to rest on cold floors with only a blanket as a mattress. Survivors also reported that corpses were left in communal cells for days. When the commission began its first on-site investigations, it found small, windowless isolation cells in the basement still saturated with a terrible stench and bearing the marks of unimaginable suffering. The conditions at these locations matched the accounts provided by hundreds of survivors and defectors over the past 14 years. While the former government of Syria was overthrown in December 2024, agony persists for tens of thousands of families who continue to search for missing loved ones, many of whom were detained under the previous regime's brutal policies. The discovery of additional mass graves has deepened fears that many of the missing have perished in the torture chambers or been executed by the authorities. Following recent visits to mass graves and former detention centers in the Damascus area, the commission confirmed that substantial evidence of the crimes remains. Sites such as the notorious Sednaya prison, Military Intelligence Branch 235, and Air Force Intelligence branches in Mezzeh and Harasta still bear traces of the regime's crimes. Although much of the documentation had been destroyed, significant remnants of evidence have survived, raising hopes of uncovering the truth about the fate of missing persons. The report underscores the urgent need for safeguarding evidence, archives, and crime sites, including mass graves, until experts can examine them and conduct forensic exhumations. 'For Syrians who did not find their loved ones among the freed, this evidence, alongside testimonies of freed detainees, may be their best hope to uncover the truth about missing relatives,' said commissioner Lynn Welchman. The commission has urged the new caretaker government to prioritize the protection of these mass graves and crime scenes, as well as the collection of further evidence through forensic exhumations. While the overthrow of the regime represents a turning point, the commission stresses that the road to justice and accountability is far from over. With the former government's fall, Syria is now at a critical juncture. The transitional authorities and future leaders have an opportunity to ensure these crimes are not repeated, the commission said. 'The transition period offers a window of opportunity to break the cycle of impunity,' noted commissioner Hanny Megally. 'We hope to see credible justice initiatives in Syria, where survivors and their families can play an active role. The international community must be ready to assist in this effort.' The report also calls for continued international support for Syrian civil society and human rights organizations, urging nations to pursue universal jurisdiction to bring perpetrators to justice. The commission continues to work with the UN and partner organizations, including the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism and the Independent Institution on Missing Persons in the Syrian Arab Republic to support accountability and justice efforts. It was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2011, and since then has investigated violations of international law during the Syrian conflict, which has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and displaced millions of people. The commission's mandate has been extended multiple times, most recently until March 2025. With this report, the UN commission seeks not only to document the scale of the atrocities committed by the former regime but also to contribute to a broader effort to ensure that such violations never happen again.
