{"id":420,"date":"2011-12-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/?p=420","title":{"rendered":"Syria: \u2018Shoot to Kill\u2019 Commanders Named, Security Council Should Refer Syria to ICC for Crimes Against Humanity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0(London) \u2013 Former  Syrian soldiers&nbsp;identified by name 74 commanders and officials responsible  for attacks on unarmed protesters, Human Rights Watch said in a report released  today. The report names commanders and officials from the Syrian military and  intelligence agencies who allegedly ordered, authorized, or condoned widespread  killings, torture, and unlawful arrests during the 2011 anti-government  protests. Human Rights Watch has urged the Security Council to refer the  situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and impose  sanctions against the officials implicated in abuses.<\/p>\n<p>  The 88-page report, &ldquo;&lsquo;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hrw.org\/reports\/2011\/12\/15\/all-means-necessary-0\">By All Means  Necessary!&rsquo;: Individual and Command Responsibility for Crimes against Humanity  in Syria<\/a>,&rdquo; is based on more than 60 interviews with defectors from the  Syrian military and intelligence agencies. The defectors provided detailed  information about their units&rsquo; participation in attacks, abuses against Syrian  citizens, and the orders they received from commanders and officials at various  levels, who are named in the report.<\/p>\n<p>  &ldquo;Defectors gave us names, ranks, and positions of those who gave the orders to  shoot and kill, and each and every official named in this report, up to the  very highest levels of the Syrian government, should answer for their crimes  against the Syrian people,&rdquo; said <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hrw.org\/bios\/dr-anna-neistat\">Anna Neistat<\/a>, associate  director for emergencies at Human Rights Watch, and one of the authors of the  report. &ldquo;The Security Council should ensure accountability by referring <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hrw.org\/middle-eastn-africa\/syria\">Syria <\/a>to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hrw.org\/category\/topic\/international-justice\/international-criminal-court\">International  Criminal Court<\/a>&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>  The defectors&rsquo; statements leave no doubt that the Syrian security forces  committed widespread and systematic abuses, including killings, arbitrary  detention, and torture, as part of a state policy targeting the civilian  population, Human Rights Watch said. These abuses constitute crimes against  humanity.<\/p>\n<p>  <strong>Killings of Protesters and Bystanders<\/strong><br \/>\n  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;v=YbFoSaC7mb4\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;v=YbFoSaC7mb4<\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"450\" height=\"259\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YbFoSaC7mb4\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>  All of the defectors interviewed by Human Rights Watch said  that their commanders gave standing orders to stop the overwhelmingly peaceful  protests throughout the country &ldquo;by all means necessary&rdquo; during regular  briefings to soldiers and armed units and prior to their deployment. The  defectors said that they understood the phrase &ldquo;by all means necessary&rdquo; as an  authorization to use lethal force, especially since they had been given live  ammunition instead of other means of crowd control.<\/p>\n<p>  About half the defectors Human Rights Watch interviewed said the commanders of  their units or other officers also gave them direct orders to open fire at  protesters or bystanders, and reassured them that they would not be held  accountable. In some cases, officers themselves participated in the killings.<\/p>\n<p>  &ldquo;Amjad,&rdquo; who was deployed to Daraa with the 35th Special Forces  Regiment, said that he received direct verbal orders from his commander to open  fire at the protestors on April 25:<br \/>\n  The commander of our regiment, Brigadier General Ramadan  Ramadan, usually stayed behind the lines. But this time he stood in front of  the whole brigade. He said, &ldquo;Use heavy shooting. Nobody will ask you to  explain.&rdquo; Normally we are supposed to save bullets, but this time he said, &ldquo;Use  as many bullets as you want.&rdquo; And when somebody asked what we were supposed to  shoot at, he said, &ldquo;At anything in front of you.&rdquo; About 40 protesters were  killed that day.<br \/>\n  The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has  said that more than 5,000 people have been killed since the start of the  protests. Human Rights Watch has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2011\/11\/11\/syria-crimes-against-humanity-homs\">documented<\/a>\u00a0 many of these killings.<\/p>\n<p>  Syrian authorities \u2013 most recently President Bashar al-Assad, in an interview  on December 7 \u2013 have repeatedly claimed that armed terrorist gangs, incited and  sponsored from abroad, were responsible for the violence in the country since  the uprising began in March. Human Rights Watch has documented several  incidents in which demonstrators and armed neighborhood groups have resorted to  violence, and the number of armed attacks on security forces by military  defectors has significantly increased since September. However, the majority of  protests that Human Rights Watch has been able to document since the uprising  began in March has been largely peaceful. The defectors Human Rights Watch interviewed  disputed the government&rsquo;s claim about armed gangs and said that the protesters  they observed were not armed and did not present a significant threat to the  soldiers.<\/p>\n<p>  <strong>Arbitrary Arrests, Torture, and Executions<\/strong><br \/>\n  Information provided by the defectors corroborates Human  Rights Watch&rsquo;s findings of widespread arbitrary arrests and torture of  detainees across Syria. The defectors described large-scale, arbitrary arrests  during protests and at checkpoints, as well as &ldquo;sweep&rdquo; operations in  residential neighborhoods across the country that have resulted in hundreds,  and at times, thousands, of arrests.<\/p>\n<p>  Defectors told Human Rights Watch that they routinely beat and mistreated  detainees and that their commanders ordered, encouraged, or condoned these  abuses. Those who had worked in or had access to detention facilities told  Human Rights Watch that they witnessed or participated in torture.<\/p>\n<p>  &ldquo;Hani,&rdquo; a member of the Special Operations branch of Air Force Intelligence,  described the orders he received:<br \/>\n  On April 1, we were conducting arrests in Mo&rsquo;adamiyeh  neighborhood in Damascus. We received our orders from Colonel Suheil Hassan. He  told us explicitly to beat people severely on the heads, and not to worry about  the consequences. We also used electric cattle prods. He verbally communicated  the order to us, before we were dispatched.<br \/>\n  We were beating people inside the buses, and then at the  detention facility at the base. At the detention facility, we would first put  people in the yard, and beat them randomly, without any interrogation. I was  involved in escorting prisoners to the yard, and then to the detention  facility. That day we arrested about 100 people. We put all of them in a 5-by-5  meter cell.<br \/>\n  My unit was also involved in beating people. My heart was  boiling inside, but I couldn&rsquo;t show it because I knew what would happen to me.<br \/>\n  Three defectors described to Human Rights Watch incidents of  summary executions and deaths from torture, involving 19 victims.  Lieutenant-Colonel &ldquo;Ghassan,&rdquo; who served in the Presidential Guard, said that  around August 7, he witnessed a summary execution of a detainee at a checkpoint  in Douma:<br \/>\n  I was stationed at a checkpoint in the Abdul Ra&rsquo;uf  neighborhood in Douma. My shift was supposed to be from 4 p.m. to midnight. I  arrived at 3:45 p.m. and immediately heard screams and sounds of beatings from  an abandoned building near the checkpoint. I went in, and it turned out that  Colonel Mohamed Saker, who had the shift at the checkpoint before me, had  arrested someone from the &ldquo;wanted&rdquo; list. I wanted to take over right away to  stop it, and said it was my shift. But Saker said, &ldquo;No, be patient, we&rsquo;ll deal  with him first.&rdquo;<br \/>\n  Seven soldiers were beating the man whom they had arrested.  When I came, he was still alive. He was screaming, and the soldiers were  swearing and laughing. It lasted for about five minutes longer, and then he  died. He stopped moving, and I saw blood coming out of his mouth.<br \/>\n  When I took over, I informed Khadur [commander of 106th  brigade of the Presidential Guard, Brigadier General Mohamed Khadur] that we  had a fatality. He ordered us to leave the checkpoint and the body behind. We  went back to headquarters. Somebody must have picked up the body. People saw us  coming out of that building.<br \/>\n  Local activists have reported more than 197 executions and  deaths in detention as of November 15.<\/p>\n<p>  Defectors also provided further information about the denial of medical  assistance to wounded protesters, the use of ambulances to arrest the injured,  and the mistreatment of injured people in hospitals controlled by intelligence  agencies and the military, a disturbing pattern that Human Rights Watch and  other organizations have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2011\/04\/12\/syria-security-forces-barring-protesters-medical-care\">documented<\/a>.<br \/>\n  <strong>Command Responsibility <\/strong><br \/>\n  Under international law, commanders are responsible for international crimes  committed by their subordinates if the commanders knew or should have known  about the violations and failed to investigate and stop them.<\/p>\n<p>  Human Rights Watch said that given the widespread nature of killings and other  crimes committed in Syria, scores of statements from soldiers about their  orders to shoot and abuse protesters, and the extensive documentation of these  abuses by international and local organizations and the media, it is reasonable  to conclude, at minimum, that Syria&rsquo;s senior military and civilian leadership  knew about them. The ongoing killings, arrests, repression, and general denials  of responsibility by the Syrian government also make clear that officials have  failed to take any meaningful action to address these abuses.<\/p>\n<p>  Furthermore, Human Rights Watch has collected information indicating that the  Syrian military and civilian leadership have been closely involved in the  violent crackdown on protesters.<\/p>\n<p>  &ldquo;Try as he may to distance himself from responsibility for his government&rsquo;s  relentless brutality, President Assad&rsquo;s claim that he did not actually order  the crackdown does not absolve him of criminal responsibility,&rdquo; Neistat said.  &ldquo;As the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, he must have known about the  abuses \u2013 if not from his subordinates, then from UN reports and the reports  Human Rights Watch sent him.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>  Human Rights Watch also called for the investigation of other high-level  officials for their command responsibility for crimes against humanity. These  officials include: Imad Dawoud Rajiha, defense minister; Imad Fahed al-Jasem  el-Freij, the Army chief of staff; Maj. Gen. Abdul Fatah Kudsiyeh, director of  the Military Intelligence Department; Maj. Gen. Jamil Hassan, director of the  Air Force Intelligence Directorate; Maj. Gen. Ali Mamlouk, director of the  General Intelligence Directorate; and Maj. Gen. Mohamed Dib Zeitoun, director  of the Political Security Directorate.<\/p>\n<p>  &ldquo;The Syrian officials who engaged in these crimes must know they&rsquo;ll have to pay  for them eventually,&rdquo; Neistat said. &ldquo;And they must know that they&rsquo;ll end up  holding the bag even as President Assad claims he didn&rsquo;t know anything.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>  <strong>Repercussions for Disobeying Orders<\/strong><br \/>\n  The consequences for disobeying orders and challenging government claims about  the protests have been severe. Eight defectors told Human Rights Watch that  they witnessed officers or intelligence agents killing soldiers who refused to  follow orders.<\/p>\n<p>  &ldquo;Habib,&rdquo; a conscript soldier from the 65th Brigade, 3rd  Division, told Human Rights Watch that a soldier from his battalion was killed  around April 14 for not following orders of Colonel Mohammed Khader, the  battalion commander, to shoot at protesters in Douma:<br \/>\n  The soldiers were in front. Colonel Khader and the security  agents were standing right behind us. Yusuf Musa Krad, a 21-year-old conscript  from Daraa, was standing right next to me. At some point the colonel noticed  that Yusuf was only shooting in the air. He told First Lieutenant Jihad from  the regional branch of Military Intelligence. They were always together. Jihad  called a sniper on the roof, pointed at Yusuf, and the sniper then shot Yusuf  twice in the head. Security agents took Yusuf&rsquo;s body away. The next day we saw  Yusuf&rsquo;s body on TV. They said that he had been killed by terrorists.<br \/>\n  Three defectors told Human Rights Watch that the authorities  had detained them because they refused to follow orders or challenged  government claims; two said that security forces beat and tortured them.<\/p>\n<p>  <strong>Recommendations<\/strong><br \/>\n  Human Rights Watch called on the United Nations Security Council to refer the  situation in Syria to the ICC. Because crimes against humanity are considered  crimes of universal jurisdiction, all states are responsible for bringing to  justice those who have committed them.<\/p>\n<p>  Human Rights Watch also specifically called on Russia, one of the few countries  that still supports the Syrian government, to end its opposition to strong  Security Council action on Syria; to suspend all military sales and assistance  to the Syrian government, given the real risk that weapons and technology will  be used to commit serious human rights violations; and, in bilateral meetings,  to condemn in the strongest terms the Syrian authorities&rsquo; systematic violations  of human rights.<\/p>\n<p>  &ldquo;Over 5,000 Syrians have lost their lives, and countless more have been  injured, arrested, and tortured, as Russia has wasted time defending Assad&rsquo;s  ruthless slaughter and empty promises of reform,&rdquo; Neistat said. &ldquo;The Russian  government has a duty to protect the Syrian people, not its brutal government  killers.&rdquo;<br \/>\n  <a name=\"additional\" id=\"additional\"><\/a><strong>Additional Witness Statements From  the Report<\/strong><br \/>\n  &ldquo;Mansour,&rdquo; a member of Air Force Intelligence in Daraa, said  that in April the commander in charge of Air Force Intelligence in Daraa,  Colonel Qusay Mihoub, gave his unit orders to &ldquo;stop the protesters by all  possible means,&rdquo; which included the use of lethal force:<br \/>\n  Our orders were to make the demonstrators retreat by all  possible means, including by shooting at them. It was a broad order that  shooting was allowed. When officers were present, they would decide when and  whom to shoot. If somebody carried a microphone or a sign, or if demonstrators  refused to retreat, we would shoot. We were ordered to fire directly at protesters  many times. We had Kalashnikovs and machine guns, and there were snipers on the  roofs. <br \/>\n  &ldquo;Osama,&rdquo; who served in the 555th Airborne  Regiment, 4th Division, said that Brigadier General Jamal Yunes, the  regiment commander, gave the troops verbal orders to shoot at protesters during  their deployment to Mo`adamiyeh, a neighborhood of Damascus, in May:<br \/>\n  Initially, when the protest started, Brigadier General Jamal  Yunes told us not to shoot. But then he received additional orders from Maher  [Maher al-Assad, the commander of the 4th Division and President al-Assad&rsquo;s  younger brother]. He had some kind of paper that he showed the officers, and  then the officers pointed their guns at us, and told us to shoot straight at  the protesters. These officers later told me the paper contained orders from  Maher to &ldquo;use all possible means.&rdquo; <br \/>\n  &ldquo;Zahir,&rdquo; deployed to Banyas, Bayda, and Basateen in April  and May, described how officers in his unit and accompanying intelligence  agencies carried out arrests and looting in the towns they invaded: <br \/>\n  In Bayda, we broke the doors and took whatever we wanted.  The <em>mukhabarat<\/em> [intelligence agencies] were arresting people; in one  area, they arrested 10 old men to force their children to turn themselves in.  The same continued in Banyas, where we went the next days. In Basateen, we  looted everything, both my unit and others. We always took money, and then  whatever was there: gold, mobiles, electronics, and sometimes even women&rsquo;s  clothing. I saw the <em>mukhabarat<\/em> and some soldiers also touching women inappropriately,  pretending to be looking for bombs and explosives. <br \/>\n  &ldquo;Salim,&rdquo; an officer with the 46th Special Forces Regiment  who was stationed at the Idlib camp, described the mistreatment of detainees  brought to the camp under the watch of the commander who oversaw the operations  in Idlib, <em>Imad<\/em> Fahed Al Jasem:<br \/>\n  From July to September, I observed how the <em>mukhabarat<\/em> brought detainees to the camp [in Idlib], usually 10 to 30 people, around 9 or  10 p.m., after every protest \u2013 and they happened almost daily. They lined them  up, blindfolded, put them on their knees, and beat them up. They swore at them,  and put their feet on people&rsquo;s heads. It was outside, right near my office.  They beat them up while waiting for Al Jasem [<em>Imad<\/em> Fahed Al Jasem, who  oversaw the operations in Idlib] to come to inspect the detainees.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br \/>\n  When Al Jasem arrived, he would swear at the detainees for  participating in the protests. And then they would take them to a nearby  prison. The prison was guarded by the soldiers from my unit, so I sometimes  went there. They held the detainees there for a night, in a 6-by-7 meter room,  without food or water. <br \/>\n  &ldquo;Nizar,&rdquo; who was a guard in the military hospital in Homs  from mid-April to mid-September 2011, described the beating and torture of  injured protesters detained at the hospital: <br \/>\n  The <em>mukhabarat<\/em> and the army brought the injured and  unloaded them in the yard next to the emergency area. Everybody would start  beating them, including doctors and nurses. All the detainees were blindfolded. <br \/>\n  After the initial beating in the yard, the nurses and guards  took the wounded into the emergency room, provided them some basic assistance,  and then the <em>mukhabarat<\/em> took them. They first held them in a detention  facility on the premises for a few days; the army police was in charge of it.  Then members of the Air Force Intelligence took them away in their cars. That  was the case with every single injured person brought to the hospital. I think  people were tortured in the detention facility because I regularly heard their  screams. People with serious wounds were taken to intensive care and guarded  there by army police. Sometimes, soldiers would go in there, and I would hear  people screaming; I think they were beating them inside there. <br \/>\n  Colonel Dr. Haitham Othman was in charge of the hospital.  The chief doctor in the hospital was trying to tell him and the <em>mukhabarat<\/em> not to torture people because the hospital&rsquo;s job was to treat people and not to  torture them, but everybody just ignored him. <br \/>\n  We were not supposed to allow any family members in. When  relatives asked at the gate, we told them that this was an army hospital and it  didn&rsquo;t have any civilians. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source URL:<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2011\/12\/15\/syria-shoot-kill-commanders-named\">http:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2011\/12\/15\/syria-shoot-kill-commanders-named<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\n15-Dec-2011\n<\/p>\n<p>\n(London) &ndash; Former  Syrian soldiers&nbsp;identified by name 74 commanders and officials responsible  for attacks on unarmed protesters, Human Rights Watch said in a report released  today. The report names commanders and officials from the Syrian military and  intelligence agencies who allegedly ordered, authorized, or condoned widespread  killings, torture, and unlawful arrests during the 2011 anti-government  protests. Human Rights Watch has urged the Security Council to refer the  situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and impose  sanctions against the officials implicated in abuses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}