Since the outbreak of Syria’s civil warfare in 2011, Bashar Assad’s regime has confronted relentless accusations of widespread human rights violations, together with torture, rape and executions.
As the hardline ruler’s downfall unfolded in latest days, U.N. investigators are calling for accountability on the highest stage for these abuses.
Caesar’s pictures
In 2013, a defector recognized solely as “Caesar” smuggled out over 55,000 haunting images taken between 2011 and 2013.
The pictures, verified by specialists, depicted tortured, starved and disfigured our bodies in Syrian prisons.
One picture confirmed a whole bunch of corpses in a shed, coated in plastic for burial.
The Assad regime dismissed the pictures as “political,” however Caesar’s testimony earlier than a U.S. Congress committee helped encourage the 2020 U.S. legislation imposing financial sanctions on Syria.
In a big transfer in 2022, Germany, Sweden and France started prosecuting high-ranking members of Syria’s intelligence providers.
In July, a coordinated European operation led to the arrest of eight people linked to crimes in opposition to humanity, often called “Caesar.”
Investigators now have an inventory of over 4,000 officers chargeable for these violations.
Torture archipelago
Human Rights Watch coined the time period “torture archipelago” in 2012 to explain the community of government-run prisons the place systematic abuse was rampant.
These prisons have been websites of unspeakable cruelty, together with electrical shocks, sexual assault and mock executions.
By 2022, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that over 100,000 people had died in these amenities because the battle started.
In 2023, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Syria to halt inhumane therapy in its prisons.
Rape and sexual violence
Sexual violence has been a trademark of the Assad regime’s warfare techniques.
In 2020, seven Syrian refugees filed a grievance in Germany, detailing their experiences of rape, compelled abortion and electrical shocks from 2011 to 2013.
The U.N. reported in 2018 that sexual violence by pro-Assad forces was systematic, with hundreds of girls and women subjected to abuse.
As of November 2024, the Syrian Human Rights Network confirmed no less than 11,553 situations of sexual violence since 2011, with the bulk blamed on Assad’s authorities.
Extermination
In 2016, U.N. investigators labeled the Syrian authorities’s actions as “extermination,” against the law in opposition to humanity.
This was epitomized by Sednaya jail, infamous for its brutal practices.
Amnesty International described it as a “human slaughterhouse” the place inmates have been systematically executed, some after horrific torture.
The U.S. additionally highlighted a “crematorium” at Sednaya used to get rid of the our bodies of hundreds of victims.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights later estimated that 30,000 people died at Sednaya, many tortured to demise.
Chemical weapons
Assad’s forces have been implicated in a number of chemical weapons assaults, most infamously in 2013 close to Damascus, when sarin gasoline reportedly killed 1,000 folks.
The chemical weapons watchdog OPCW confirmed that the Syrian military used chemical brokers in assaults on Latamne in 2017.
France, in 2023, issued worldwide arrest warrants for Assad, his brother, and two generals, accusing them of complicity in these assaults.
Assad’s authorities has denied all prices of utilizing chemical weapons.
Source: www.dailysabah.com