(Zaman Al Wasl)- The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said Monday in a legal report that the Syrian regime has been practicing 72 torture methods gainast detainees in security chambers and military hospitals.
The 65-page report states that torture in the regime’s detention centers still continues to date, with the report documenting the deaths of at least 14,000 individuals due to torture in the Syrian regime’s detention centers between March 2011 and September 2019, including185 individuals who were killed since the beginning of 2019.
About 1.2 million Syrian citizens have been arrested and detained at some point in the regime’s detention centers, including 130,000 individuals who are still detained or forcibly disappeared by the Syrian regime, since the revolution erupted in March 2011, SNHR said.
The report reveals that between March 2011 and September 2019, at least 14,298 individuals, including 178 children and 63 women (adult female) were documented as dying due to torture at the hands of the main parties to the conflict in Syria, including 14,131 killed at the hands of the Syrian Regime forces, 173 of whom were children and 45 of whom were women. In addition to this, a further 57 individuals, including two children and 14 women, were documented as dying due to torture at the hands of Extremist Islamist groups, 32 of whom, including one child and 14 women, died in ISIS’ prisons, while 25 others, including one child, died as a result of torture in Hay’at Tahrir al Sham’s prisons.
According to SNHR, 43 individuals, including one child and one woman, were documented as dying due to torture in prisons of factions of the Armed Opposition, with 47 other individuals also documented as dying due to torture at the hands of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, including one child and two women. The report also notes that at least 20 individuals were documented as dying as a result of torture at the hands of other parties.
The basic torture patterns are: physical torture, consisting of 39 methods, health neglect and conditions of detention, consisting of six methods, sexual violence, consisting of eight methods, psychological torture and humiliation of human dignity, consisting of eight methods, torture in military hospitals, consisting of nine methods, in addition to forced labor and the phenomenon of ‘separation’.
SNHR has recently confirmed the identities of 29 more of the individuals who appeared in the Caesar photographs smuggled out of military hospitals, noting that the previous reports issued by the SNHR had identified 772 of these victims. The latest cases mean that, between March 2015 and September 2019, the SNHR has managed to positively identify a total of at least 801 of the victims shown in the Caesar photographs, including two children and 10 women, after receiving approximately 6,189 of the photographs smuggled out by Caesar.
The report is based on the SNHR’s database of detentions, enforced disappearances and torture, which have been documented through daily monitoring and documentation since 2011.
The report includes 20 accounts from torture survivors or victims’ relatives which we obtained through direct interviews with witnesses rather than from any open sources.
According to the International Conscience Movement, an NGO, more than 13,500 women have been jailed since the Syrian conflict began, while more than 7,000 women remain in detention, where they are subjected to torture, rape and sexual violence.
Syrian opposition sources said that more than 500,000 prisoners remain inside the prisons of the Syrian regime.
The eight-year-old war has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands and forced 13 million people from their homes, half of whom have left their shattered homeland.
Zaman Al Wasl, SNHR
Zaman Al Wasl
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