Syrians disappeared in "campaign of terror" Enforced disappearances committed by government forces

[pampango]

are a 'systematic attack' against civilians, UN report says.

Syrian activists and other citizens have vanished into secret detention as part of a "widespread campaign of terror against the civilian population" by the Damascus government, UN investigators said on Thursday.

"There are reasonable grounds to believe that enforced disappearances were committed by government forces as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population, and therefore amount to a crime against humanity," an independent commission looking into the issue said in a report on Thursday.

Most witnesses have identified Syrian intelligence officers, soldiers and pro-government militias as having snatched people whose fate remains unknown, according to the independent investigators led by Brazilian Paulo Pinheiro.

The commission also said that some armed groups in northern Syria, especially the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), have begun to abduct people into incommunicado detention and deny their captivity. ISIL has also sought ransoms or prisoner exchanges, which constitute separate war crimes, it added. In a separate report, London-based Amnesty International said armed groups were perpetrating "a shocking catalogue of abuses" in secret jails across northern Syria, including torture, flogging and killings after summary trials.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/12/syrians-disappeared-campaign-terror-20131219115135121660.html

Syria: Harrowing torture, summary killings in secret ISIS detention centres

Torture, flogging, and summary killings are rife in secret prisons run by the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), an armed group that controls large areas of northern Syria, said Amnesty International in a briefing published today.

ISIS, which claims to apply strict Shari’a (Islamic law) in areas it controls, has ruthlessly flouted the rights of local people. In the 18-page briefing, Rule of fear: ISIS abuses in detention in northern Syria, Amnesty International identifies seven detention facilities that ISIS uses in al-Raqqa governorate and Aleppo.

“Those abducted and detained by ISIS include children as young as eight who are held together with adults in the same cruel and inhuman conditions,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“After years in which they were prey to the brutality of the al-Assad regime, the people of al-Raqqa and Aleppo are now suffering under a new form of tyranny imposed on them by ISIS, in which arbitrary detention, torture and executions have become the order of the day,” said Philip Luther.

http://amnesty.org./en/news/syria-harrowing-torture-summary-killings-secret-isis-detention-centres-2013-12-19

The Syrian people certainly deserve sympathy and support. They are getting abused from all sides.

[JohnyCanuck]

1. Kick n/t