Latest news with #SyriaJusticeandAccountabilityCentre
Gulf Today
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Gulf Today
Syrians hope for justice, but face long road ahead
After searching for years for his son and brothers following their arrest and disappearance by Bashar Al Assad's forces, Syrian real estate broker Maher Al Ton hopes he may finally get justice under the new authorities. Last week, the government announced the creation of a national commission for missing persons and another for transitional justice. That, along with the new rulers' arrests of alleged human rights violators linked to the ousted president's government, have made Ton feel hopeful. 'I feel like my son might still be alive,' the 54-year-old said. Mohammad Al Abdallah, executive director of the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre, said that 'there are random arrests of individuals without a plan to search for the missing or to open central investigations into the crime of enforced disappearance, or even to protect mass graves.' Assad's forces arrested Ton's son Mohammed Nureddin in 2018 near Damascus when he was just 17 years old, and has not been heard from since. 'I hope justice and fairness will prevail, and that they will reclaim our rights from the Syrian Arab Army which unjustly took our sons,' he said, using the since disbanded military's official name. Rights groups have welcomed the establishment of the justice commissions, but criticised the limiting of their scope to crimes committed by Assad's government. Syria's war erupted in 2011 with a brutal government crackdown on democracy protesters that saw tens of thousands of people accused of dissent either jailed or killed. Over time, armed groups emerged to battle Assad's military, including radical forces that committed atrocities. During the war, rights groups accused the Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) group, once affiliated with Al Qaeda, of abuses including unlawful detention and torture. HTS spearheaded the offensive that ousted Assad in December, and its leaders now form the core of the new government. Diab Serriya, a co-founder of the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison, said that while Assad's government was 'the biggest perpetrator of human rights violations,' that does not 'absolve the other parties in the conflict.' The new body, he said, 'does not meet the aspirations of victims'. Agence France-Presse
LBCI
27-02-2025
- Politics
- LBCI
More than 1,000 Syrians died in airport prison under Assad: Reuters
More than 1,000 Syrians died in detention at a military airport on the outskirts of Damascus, killed by execution, torture or maltreatment at a site that was widely feared, according to a report to be published Thursday tracing the deaths to seven suspected grave sites. In the report, shared exclusively with Reuters, the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre said it identified the grave sites by using a combination of witness testimony, satellite imagery and documents photographed at the military airport in the Damascus suburb of Mezzeh after the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad in December. Some sites were on the airport grounds. Others were across Damascus. Reuters did not examine the documents and was unable to independently confirm the existence of the mass graves through its own review of satellite imagery. But Reuters reporters did see signs of disturbed earth in images of many of the places pinpointed by SJAC. Two of the sites, one on the Mezzeh airport property and another at a cemetery in Najha, show clear signs of long trenches dug during periods consistent with witness testimony from SJAC. Reuters
MTV Lebanon
27-02-2025
- Politics
- MTV Lebanon
More than 1,000 Syrians died in airport prison under Assad
More than 1,000 Syrians died in detention at a military airport on the outskirts of Damascus, killed by execution, torture or maltreatment at a site that was widely feared, according to a report to be published Thursday tracing the deaths to seven suspected grave sites. In the report, shared exclusively with Reuters, the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre said it identified the grave sites by using a combination of witness testimony, satellite imagery and documents photographed at the military airport in the Damascus suburb of Mezzeh after the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad in December. Some sites were on the airport grounds. Others were across Damascus. Reuters did not examine the documents and was unable to independently confirm the existence of the mass graves through its own review of satellite imagery. But Reuters reporters did see signs of disturbed earth in images of many of the places pinpointed by SJAC. Two of the sites, one on the Mezzeh airport property and another at a cemetery in Najha, show clear signs of long trenches dug during periods consistent with witness testimony from SJAC. Shadi Haroun, one of the report's authors, said he was among the captives. Held over several months in 2011-2012 for organizing protests, he described daily interrogations with physical and psychological torture intended to force him into baseless confessions. Death came in many forms, he told Reuters. Although detainees saw nothing except their cell walls or the interrogation room, they could hear 'occasional shootings, shot by shot, every couple of days.' Then there were the injuries inflicted by their tormentors. 'A small wound on the foot of one of the detainees, caused by a whipping he received during torture, was left unsterilized or untreated for days, which gradually turned into gangrene and his condition worsened until it reached the point of amputation of the entire foot,' Haroun said, describing a cellmate's plight. In addition to obtaining the documents, SJAC and the Association for the Detained and Missing Persons in Sednaya Prison interviewed 156 survivors and eight former members of air force intelligence, Syria's security service that was tasked with the surveillance, imprisonment and killing of regime critics. The new government has issued a decree forbidding former regime officials from speaking publicly and none were available to comment. 'Although some of the graves mentioned in the report had not been discovered before, the discovery itself does not surprise us, as we know that there are more than 100,000 missing persons in Assad's prisons who did not come out during the days of liberation in early December,' said a colonel in the new government's Interior Ministry who identified himself by his military alias, Abu Baker. 'Discovering the fates of those missing persons and searching for more graves is one of the greatest legacies left by the Assad regime,' he said. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are estimated to have been killed since 2011, when Assad's crackdown on protests spiralled into a full-scale war. Both Assad and his father Hafez, who preceded him as president and died in 2000, have long been accused by rights groups, foreign governments and war-crimes prosecutors of widespread extrajudicial killings, including mass executions within the country's prison system and using chemical weapons against the Syrian people. The SJAC said all the survivors it interviewed were tortured. The report focuses on the first years of the uprising, from 2011 to 2017. But some of the testimonies from former regime officers based at Mezzeh detailed events up to the regime's fall. The Mezzeh military airport was an integral part of the Assad government's machinery of enforced disappearance and housed at least 29,000 detainees between 2011 and 2017, according to the report. By 2020, according to the report, air force intelligence had converted more than a dozen hangars, dormitories and offices at Mezzeh into prisons. SJAC, a U.S.-based Syrian-led human rights group funded by European governments and, until the recent funding freeze by the Trump administration, the U.S. government, said its estimate of the dead comes from two air force intelligence datasets listing a total of 1,154 detainees who died there between 2011 and 2017. The datasets were leaked in a Facebook group monitored by SJAC as the regime collapsed and cross-checked by the organization against documents and witness testimony. The estimate does not include people who were executed after being sentenced to death by a military field court set up inside a hangar. According to witness testimony in the report, officers and soldiers were executed by firing squad, while civilians were hanged. Two witnesses said many of those executed were buried near the hangar. In December, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed war crimes charges against two ranking Syrian air force intelligence officers over " the infliction of cruel and inhuman treatment on detainees under their control, including U.S. citizens, in detention facilities at the Mezzeh Military Airport.'
Khaleej Times
27-02-2025
- Politics
- Khaleej Times
More than 1,000 Syrians died in airport prison under Assad: Report
More than 1,000 Syrians died in detention at a military airport on the outskirts of Damascus, killed by execution, torture or maltreatment at a site that was widely feared, according to a report to be published on Thursday tracing the deaths to seven suspected grave sites. In the report, shared exclusively with Reuters, the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre said it identified the grave sites by using a combination of witness testimony, satellite imagery and documents photographed at the military airport in the Damascus suburb of Mezzeh after the ouster of President Bashar Al Assad in December. Some sites were on the airport grounds. Others were across Damascus. Reuters did not examine the documents and was unable to independently confirm the existence of the mass graves through its own review of satellite imagery. But Reuters reporters did see signs of disturbed earth in images of many of the places pinpointed by SJAC. Two of the sites, one on the Mezzeh airport property and another at a cemetery in Najha, show clear signs of long trenches dug during periods consistent with witness testimony from SJAC. Shadi Haroun, one of the report's authors, said he was among the captives. Held over several months in 2011-2012 for organising protests, he described daily interrogations with physical and psychological torture intended to force him into baseless confessions. Death came in many forms, he told Reuters. Although detainees saw nothing except their cell walls or the interrogation room, they could hear 'occasional shootings, shot by shot, every couple of days.' Then there were the injuries inflicted by their tormentors. 'A small wound on the foot of one of the detainees, caused by a whipping he received during torture, was left unsterilised or untreated for days, which gradually turned into gangrene and his condition worsened until it reached the point of amputation of the entire foot,' Haroun said, describing a cellmate's plight. In addition to obtaining the documents, SJAC and the Association for the Detained and Missing Persons in Sednaya Prison interviewed 156 survivors and eight former members of air force intelligence, Syria's security service that was tasked with the surveillance, imprisonment and killing of regime critics. The new government has issued a decree forbidding former regime officials from speaking publicly and none were available to comment. 'Although some of the graves mentioned in the report had not been discovered before, the discovery itself does not surprise us, as we know that there are more than 100,000 missing persons in Assad's prisons who did not come out during the days of liberation in early December,' said a colonel in the new government's Interior Ministry who identified himself by his military alias, Abu Baker. 'Discovering the fates of those missing persons and searching for more graves is one of the greatest legacies left by the Assad regime,' he said. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are estimated to have been killed since 2011, when Assad's crackdown on protests spiralled into a full-scale war. Both Assad and his father Hafez, who preceded him as president and died in 2000, have long been accused by rights groups, foreign governments and war-crimes prosecutors of widespread extrajudicial killings, including mass executions within the country's prison system and using chemical weapons against the Syrian people. The SJAC said all the survivors it interviewed were tortured. The report focuses on the first years of the uprising, from 2011 to 2017. But some of the testimonies from former regime officers based at Mezzeh detailed events up to the regime's fall. The Mezzeh military airport was an integral part of the Assad government's machinery of enforced disappearance and housed at least 29,000 detainees between 2011 and 2017, according to the report. By 2020, according to the report, air force intelligence had converted more than a dozen hangars, dormitories and offices at Mezzeh into prisons. SJAC, a US-based Syrian-led human rights group funded by European governments and, until the recent funding freeze by the Trump administration, the US government, said its estimate of the dead comes from two air force intelligence datasets listing a total of 1,154 detainees who died there between 2011 and 2017. The datasets were leaked in a Facebook group monitored by SJAC as the regime collapsed and cross-checked by the organisation against documents and witness testimony. The estimate does not include people who were executed after being sentenced to death by a military field court set up inside a hangar. According to witness testimony in the report, officers and soldiers were executed by firing squad, while civilians were hanged. Two witnesses said many of those executed were buried near the hangar. In December, the US Justice Department unsealed war crimes charges against two ranking Syrian air force intelligence officers over "the infliction of cruel and inhuman treatment on detainees under their control, including US citizens, in detention facilities at the Mezzeh Military Airport'.
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Exclusive-More than 1,000 Syrians died in airport prison under Assad, report says
DAMASCUS (Reuters) - More than 1,000 Syrians died in detention at a military airport on the outskirts of Damascus, killed by execution, torture or maltreatment at a site that was widely feared, according to a report to be published Thursday tracing the deaths to seven suspected grave sites. In the report, shared exclusively with Reuters, the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre said it identified the grave sites by using a combination of witness testimony, satellite imagery and documents photographed at the military airport in the Damascus suburb of Mezzeh after the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad in December. Some sites were on the airport grounds. Others were across Damascus. See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories. By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. Reuters did not examine the documents and was unable to independently confirm the existence of the mass graves through its own review of satellite imagery. But Reuters reporters did see signs of disturbed earth in images of many of the places pinpointed by SJAC. Two of the sites, one on the Mezzeh airport property and another at a cemetery in Najha, show clear signs of long trenches dug during periods consistent with witness testimony from SJAC. Shadi Haroun, one of the report's authors, said he was among the captives. Held over several months in 2011-2012 for organizing protests, he described daily interrogations with physical and psychological torture intended to force him into baseless confessions. Death came in many forms, he told Reuters. Although detainees saw nothing except their cell walls or the interrogation room, they could hear 'occasional shootings, shot by shot, every couple of days.' Then there were the injuries inflicted by their tormentors. 'A small wound on the foot of one of the detainees, caused by a whipping he received during torture, was left unsterilized or untreated for days, which gradually turned into gangrene and his condition worsened until it reached the point of amputation of the entire foot,' Haroun said, describing a cellmate's plight. In addition to obtaining the documents, SJAC and the Association for the Detained and Missing Persons in Sednaya Prison interviewed 156 survivors and eight former members of air force intelligence, Syria's security service that was tasked with the surveillance, imprisonment and killing of regime critics. The new government has issued a decree forbidding former regime officials from speaking publicly and none were available to comment. 'Although some of the graves mentioned in the report had not been discovered before, the discovery itself does not surprise us, as we know that there are more than 100,000 missing persons in Assad's prisons who did not come out during the days of liberation in early December,' said a colonel in the new government's Interior Ministry who identified himself by his military alias, Abu Baker. 'Discovering the fates of those missing persons and searching for more graves is one of the greatest legacies left by the Assad regime,' he said. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are estimated to have been killed since 2011, when Assad's crackdown on protests spiralled into a full-scale war. Both Assad and his father Hafez, who preceded him as president and died in 2000, have long been accused by rights groups, foreign governments and war-crimes prosecutors of widespread extrajudicial killings, including mass executions within the country's prison system and using chemical weapons against the Syrian people. The SJAC said all the survivors it interviewed were tortured. The report focuses on the first years of the uprising, from 2011 to 2017. But some of the testimonies from former regime officers based at Mezzeh detailed events up to the regime's fall. The Mezzeh military airport was an integral part of the Assad government's machinery of enforced disappearance and housed at least 29,000 detainees between 2011 and 2017, according to the report. By 2020, according to the report, air force intelligence had converted more than a dozen hangars, dormitories and offices at Mezzeh into prisons. SJAC, a U.S.-based Syrian-led human rights group funded by European governments and, until the recent funding freeze by the Trump administration, the U.S. government, said its estimate of the dead comes from two air force intelligence datasets listing a total of 1,154 detainees who died there between 2011 and 2017. The datasets were leaked in a Facebook group monitored by SJAC as the regime collapsed and cross-checked by the organization against documents and witness testimony. The estimate does not include people who were executed after being sentenced to death by a military field court set up inside a hangar. According to witness testimony in the report, officers and soldiers were executed by firing squad, while civilians were hanged. Two witnesses said many of those executed were buried near the hangar. In December, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed war crimes charges against two ranking Syrian air force intelligence officers over "the infliction of cruel and inhuman treatment on detainees under their control, including U.S. citizens, in detention facilities at the Mezzeh Military Airport.'
