The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights:

The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) today, Thursday, August 15, 2024, released its third periodic monitoring report entitled, ‘In the Nine Months Since the ICJ Issued its Order, the Syrian Regime Has Killed at least 43 Individuals due to Torture, and Arrested At least 756 Civilians, Including Nine Children and 24 Women‘, stressing that this latest report again proves the Syrian regime’s blatant violation of the Order issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), as the ICJ must carry out an evaluation of the regime’s compliance and issue a statement on its findings. This latest SNHR report on the issue is the third report in a series of reports and news articles released by the group as part of its daily efforts to monitor the Syrian regime’s compliance with the ICJ Order issued on November 16, 2023.

The data contained in this report shows a continuation of the same pattern; that is to say, the Syrian regime continues to blatantly violate international law. Despite the binding legal obligations upon the Syrian regime, it has failed to take any actual steps to end torture in its detention centers. On the contrary, SNHR has documented that the Syrian regime is noticeably targeting residents of areas under its control, as well as refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) returning to these areas, showing an utter disregard for the ICJ’s Order, as the regime continues to commit crimes and violations against detainees and forcibly disappeared persons. The report also stresses that the Syrian regime has persistently demonstrated utter disregard for the ICJ’s Order and for the demands of most of the mandates of the special procedures at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), as well as the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly, especially on the issue of detention and torture. Despite thousands of items of evidence and accounts proving and documenting the continuing nature of these practices, the regime has not taken even one step to end them. All these points underline the imperative need to take decisive action to put pressure on the Syrian regime, including imposing sanctions and enforcing a diplomatic blockade, in order to compel the regime to show respect for human rights, and ensure that those responsible can no longer be shielded by impunity.

During the period between the issuance of the ICJ’s Order on November 16, 2023, and August 15, 2024, SNHR has documented the commission of serious human rights violations in a systematic manner in Syrian regime detention centers. These include torture and physical and psychological assaults against detainees. In this period, SNHR has documented at least 756 cases of arbitrary arrest at the hands of Syrian regime forces, including of nine children and 24 women, with all those detained being held in various regime detention centers. Of these 756 arrested, 97 have been released, while the remaining 659 have been categorized as enforced disappearance cases. These cases also include a number of arrests involving ‘refugees and IDPs’ who returned to regime-held areas. There have been also arrests targeting refugees and IDPs who were trying to return to their original areas, now under regime control. Some of the refugees affected returned from Lebanon and Türkiye via the Kasab Border Crossing and Damascus International Airport in Damascus city. As of this writing, SNHR has documented at least 156 arbitrary arrests/detentions by Syrian regime forces targeting refugees/IDPs who were attempting to return to regime-held areas, including two children and five women (adult female), since the start of 2024.

Additionally, since the ICJ issued its Order on November 16, 2023, up until August 15, 2024, SNHR has documented no fewer than 43 deaths due to torture in regime detention centers. Only four of the victims’ bodies have been returned to their families. Among those 43 victims were at least four former refugees who had either been forcibly deported or had returned to regime-held areas. In addition, SNHR has recorded 16 cases of people classified as forcibly disappeared who have been registered as dead in the civil registry records between November 16, 2023 and August 15, 2024. Among these cases are victims from the same families, political activists, and university students. In all the cases, the cause of death was not given, and the Syrian regime has not returned the victims’ bodies to their families or notified the families of their loved ones’ deaths at the time they took place. The group suspects that the Syrian regime is sending newly released information about forcibly disappeared persons to the civil registry offices to register their deaths.

The report concludes that the Syrian regime is still committing acts of torture of every variety, beginning with arbitrary arrest, which is, in and of itself, a form of torture since it is carried out in a manner more akin to an abduction than a legitimate arrest with no judicial warrant being shown. The process of arrest also involves the use of excessive violence and beatings of various types and degrees, which usually begin from the very first moment of the arrest, and continue throughout the detention period, which also includes subjecting detainees to cruel and inhumane detention conditions, as well as referring them to exceptional security courts, where trials are conducted in a way that is closer to an interrogation at a security facility than a legitimate courtroom trial.

The report stresses that this case is a genuine test of the credibility and power of the ICJ. As such, the ICJ must take immediate and effective measures to address these violations and ensure the realization of justice and accountability. All possible measure must be taken against the Syrian regime, including the UN Security Council issuing a binding resolution calling for ending systematic torture, all of which constitute crimes against humanity, and unequivocally condemning the Syrian regime’s breach of the ICJ’s Order.

The report also calls on the UN Security Council to impose targeted sanctions on Syrian officials who have been directly involved in torture and arbitrary arrest, or those responsible for such practices. Furthermore, the report calls on the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture to continue to monitor the Syrian regime’s compliance with the ICJ Order and release periodic statements stressing and clarifying the regime’s failure to comply. In addition, the report calls on the Arab League to take a clear stance against the Syrian regime’s brutal practices that continue to kill Syrian people under torture, and to re-suspend Syria’s membership of the Arab League until it demonstrates greater compliance with the ICJ’s Order, as well as making a number of other recommendations.

Press release: (Download the full report below)

The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) today released its 13^th annual report on torture in Syria, marking the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture which is observed on June 26 every year. These annual reports aim to shed light on the brutal torture practices, which have only grown worse since 2011 and to give some idea of the massive loss and devastation that have befallen the survivors who are still grappling with the traumatic effects of torture to this day. The report stresses that 15,383 deaths due to torture have been documented in Syria, since March 2011 up until June 2024, including of 199 children and 115 women (adult female).

The report notes that no fewer than 157,287 of the people arrested between March 2011 and June 2024, including 5,264 children and 10,221 women, are still imprisoned and/or forcibly disappeared in the various detention centers operated by the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in Syria. Of this total, at least 112,713, including 1,305 children and 6,698 women, are categorized as forcibly disappeared persons. The Syrian regime is responsible for 86 percent of these enforced disappearance cases.

The report also documents 15,383 deaths due to torture at the hands of the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in Syria since March 2011 up until June 2024, with the victims including 199 children and 115 women (adult female). Of this total, the Syrian regime has been responsible for 15,098 deaths, including of 190 children and 95 women, while ISIS has been responsible for 32 deaths, including of one child and 14 women. Meanwhile, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has been responsible for 56 deaths, including of two children and one woman, whereas Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has been responsible for 105 deaths, including of three children and two women, in addition to 62 deaths at the hands of all armed opposition factions/Syrian National Army (SNA), including of one child and two women. Lastly, other parties have been responsible for 30 deaths, including of two children and one woman.

As the report further reveals, the Syrian regime is also responsible for the arrest of the largest proportion of Syrian citizens currently detained, with all detainees in regime detention centers being subjected to one or more forms of torture. Correspondingly, the Syrian regime has been responsible for by far the largest number of deaths due to torture, accounting for at least 98 percent of all deaths due to torture recorded. This staggeringly high number suggests that torture is a systematic, recurring, and widespread practice in regime detention centers which is used against tens of thousands of detainees. As such, it amounts to a crime against humanity. Additionally, the report notes that Homs and Daraa governorate are ranked first and second respectively as the two governorates from which the largest number of victims of death due to torture originally came. In this context, the Syrian regime has been known to direct torture against specific victims over their affiliation with anti-regime individuals or groups as a form of collective retaliation.

The report adds that no fewer than 1,632 of the people forcibly disappeared by the regime, including 24 children and 21 women as well as 16 medical personnel, have been registered as dead in the civil registry records since the start of 2018 up until June 2024. In all these cases, the causes of the victims’ death have not been disclosed, their bodies have not been returned to their families, and the deaths were not announced at the times they took place.

On another note, since early 2015, SNHR has identified 1,017 of about 6,786 victims who appeared in the photos leaked from regime military hospitals, known as the ‘Caesar Photos’. Of this total, 836 victims have already been documented on SNHR’s database.

The report stresses that the Syrian regime continues to breach the order issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), having taken no action to end torture in its detention centers. These findings are based on SNHR’s detailed daily monitoring of the international human rights violations taking place in regime detention centers, as well as of any arrests/detentions carried out by regime forces, in addition to analysis of the domestic articles of legislation that have been promulgated, repealed, or amended, and of any changes to the regime’s security structure, i.e., the bodies primarily responsible and implicated in committing violations against civilians in Syria. To that end, since the ICJ issued its order on November 16, 2023, up until May 16, 2024, SNHR has documented 534 arbitrary arrests, including of eight children and 21 women. Of these detainees who were arrested and placed in various regime detention centers, 63 were released, while the remaining 471 have been subsequently categorized as forcibly disappeared persons. Furthermore, in the same period, SNHR has documented 29 deaths due to torture in regime detention centers. Only one victim’s body was returned to their family, while all the other victims’ bodies have yet to be returned. Lastly, SNHR recorded that 14 forcibly disappeared persons have been registered as dead in the civil registry’s records. Among these cases were victims from the same families, political activists, and university students. In all the cases, the cause of death was not given, and the Syrian regime has not returned the victims’ bodies to their families or notified the families of their loved ones’ deaths at the time they took place.

The report also proves that all controlling forces in Syria have practiced torture against their opponents, and that those practices persist to this day. Furthermore, the report stresses that the Syrian regime has explicitly violated the Syrian Constitution and the UN Convention Against Torture which the regime ratified in 2004.

The report calls on the international community and the state parties to the UN Convention Against Torture to take the necessary action to establish its jurisdiction over perpetrators of torture, and to enact significant and serious punitive measures against the Syrian regime, in order to deter it from killing more Syrian civilians under torture. Pressure must also be applied on other parties to the conflict, through every avenue possible, to put a definitive end to the use of torture. The state parties to the Geneva Conventions must do far more to fight crimes against humanity and war crimes. Moreover, states that have the ability to invoke universal jurisdiction must make a far greater effort to launch cases against violation perpetrators on Syria on a wider scale.

The report also calls on the ICJ to issue a statement assessing the Syrian regime’s commitment to the provisional measures indicated by the Court, as eight months have now passed since the order was issued.

Meanwhile, the report calls on the parties to the conflict in Syria to abide by the principles of international human rights law and stop using torture against political or military opponents and extracting confessions under torture, while launching investigation into such crimes in order to hold their perpetrators accountable. Additionally, the report calls for compensating the families and the victims, as well as for the immediate and unconditional release of all arbitrarily arrested detainees, especially children and women, and the disclosure of the fate of tens of thousands of forcibly disappeared persons. The report also makes a number of additional recommendations.

The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights today released a report entitled, ‘Since the ICJ Order Was Issued Six Months Ago, the Syrian Regime Has Killed No Fewer than 29 Individuals Due to Torture, and Arrested At Least 534 Civilians, Including Eight Children and 21 Women’, in which the group stressed that all members of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) must cut any and all forms of political, economic, and military ties with the Syrian regime.

The report notes that, on November 16, 2023, the Hague-based ICJ issued an order regarding the provisional measures requested by Canada in the Netherlands on the ‘Application of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment’, also known as Canada and the Netherlands v. Syrian Arab Republic. Since then, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) has been closely monitoring all violations of international human rights laws taking place in, or related to Syrian regime detention centers, as well as the arrests/detentions made by regime forces, in addition to any relevant articles of legislation promulgated, repealed, or modified by the regime during the period. The group has also been monitoring any changes in the regime’s security structure, with these being the bodies primarily responsible for committing violations against civilians in Syria. Those efforts, the report clarifies, go into releasing a periodic report assessing the Syrian regime’s commitment to the ICJ order, while also analyzing and submitting conclusions in case of non-compliance. As such, this report is the second in our series of reports on the ICJ order. The first report, which was as released on February 22, 2024, i.e., three months after the ICJ order was issued, concluded that the Syrian regime had taken no real action to comply with the conditions of the ICJ order. That report further stressed that, as shown by the data recorded, the Syrian regime has continuously breached the UN Convention Against Torture, which was ratified by Syria in 2004.

As Fadel Abdul Ghany, SNHR Executive Director, says:
“One of the main goals of our daily monitoring of the Syrian regime’s actual commitment to the ICJ order is to assist the ICJ team in assessing the said commitment before making a conclusive decision, which we hope will come sooner rather than later. Another of our goals is to help build the case against the Syrian regime, which has shown no regard for the ICJ order as evidenced by the dozens of violations we’ve documented since the order was issued.”

Since the issuance of the ICJ’s order on November 16, 2023, up until May 16, 2024, the report has documented at least 534 arbitrary arrests, including of eight children and 21 women. Of these detainees who were arrested and placed in various regime detention centers, 63 were released, while the remaining 471 have been subsequently categorized as forcibly disappeared persons. Moreover, the report has documented no fewer than 29 deaths due to torture in the same period, noting that the dead body of only one victim had been returned to their family, while all the other victims’ bodies have yet to be returned.

As the report further reveals, with the start of 2024, SNHR was able to obtain death certificates for new enforced disappearance cases that had not been publicly disclosed, leading the group to believe that the Syrian regime is sending newly released information about forcibly disappeared persons to the civil registry offices to register their deaths. Since November 16, 2023, up until May 16, 2024, the report has documented the registration of the deaths of no fewer than 14 forcibly disappeared persons in the civil registry records. Among these cases, the report notes, were victims from the same families, political activists, and university students. In all the cases, the cause of death was not given, and the Syrian regime has not returned the victims’ bodies to their families or notified the families of their loved ones’ deaths at the time they took place.

Furthermore, the report stresses that the Syrian regime has appointed or promoted military figures implicated in war crimes and crimes against humanity to senior leadership roles in the regime’s security apparatus. Since the beginning of the year, the regime has been making numerous changes to its security structure. Those changes concern leadership roles at security agencies, and changes in the duties and powers of personnel at some security branches,  with the report noting that these actions aim primarily to once again centralize all issues related to the regime’s security agencies in the hands of the National Security Bureau, so as to tighten its control over those bodies and regulate their powers in any way that the National Security Bureau, which is directly connected to Bashar Assad, sees fit, especially since Iran and Russia have encroached on the operational management of some security agencies.

Among the most prominent regime military figures implicated in war crimes and crimes against humanity who were appointed to senior positions in 2024 were Ali Mamlouk, who was named as a Special Security Advisor to the President of the Syrian Arab Republic, and Kefah Melhem, who succeeded Ali Mamlouk as the head of the National Security Bureau.

The report concludes that, as evidenced by the continued arbitrary arrests, torture practices, and enforced disappearances at the hands of the regime, which have been documented by SNHR, there is no indication to be seen of any willingness by the regime to cease torture, or even to undertake the most minimal and basic of measures mentioned above in response to the ICJ’s ruling. Furthermore, at least 136,192 people are still arbitrarily detained and/or forcibly disappeared by the regime, and enduring torture in regime detention centers. Despite being responsible for such unimaginably terrible suffering, the Syrian regime has not launched even one investigation into the disappearance or torture of detainees by its personnel. On the contrary, the regime has enacted ‘laws’ shielding them from accountability.

The report calls on the ICJ to issue a statement assessing the Syrian regime’s commitment to the provisional measures indicated by the Court six months after its most recent order, seeing that this case is a genuine test of the credibility and power of the ICJ. As such, the ICJ must take immediate and effective measures to address those violations and ensure the realization of justice and accountability. All possible measure must be taken against the Syrian regime, including the UN Security Council issuing a binding resolution calling for ending systematic torture, all of which constitutes crimes against humanity, and unequivocally condemning the Syrian regime’s breach of the ICJ order. Moreover, the report stresses that all ICJ members, namely every state in the world, must cut all and any forms of political and military association with the Syrian regime over its blatant breach of the ICJ order, and take additional action against the Syrian regime, and intensify sanctions, in order to ensure compensation for victims and the protection of human rights in Syria, in addition to making a number of other recommendations.

Thamer Habib al-Talla, a lawyer from Hasaka city, was arrested by Syrian regime forces in late April 2024, outside the Palace of Justice in the city, where he was working. He was then taken to the local branch of the regime’s Criminal Security branch in the city.

According to intelligence gathered by the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), Thamer’s family learned that his health began to deteriorate a few days after his detention. Although family members urged Criminal Security personnel to transfer him to Hasaka city for urgent medical treatment, all of their appeals were turned down.

On May 8, 2024, Thamer’s family was notified by a Syrian regime official that he had died at the Criminal Security branch in Hasaka city. His body was returned to his family at the city’s Shabou Hospital later that day. SNHR can confirm that Thamer was in good health at the time of his arrest, indicating a strong probability that he died due to torture and medical negligence in the Criminal Security branch in Hasaka city.

International law strictly prohibits torture and all other forms of cruel, degrading, or inhumane torture. The prohibition of torture is a customary rule that cannot be disputed or balanced against other rights or values, even in times of emergency. Violating this rule is a crime under international criminal law. Those who issued the orders for or assisted in carrying out torture are criminally liable for their actions.

SNHR condemns all abduction and torture practices by Syrian regime personnel, as by all other forces. We call for the immediate launch of an independent investigation into all incidents of arrest and torture that have taken place, particularly this latest barbaric incident. We also call for all of those involved in such crimes to be held accountable, from the officials issuing the orders to the individuals who carried them out and all who colluded in the process. The findings of these investigations and accountability processes must be made public to the Syrian people. All of those involved in abduction and torture practices over the years must be exposed, discharged, and tried for these crimes, while the survivors and victims’ families must be compensated for the horrendous physical and moral trauma inflicted on them.

Press release: (Download the full report below)

The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) today released its 12^th annual report on the practice of torture in Syria, marking the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. In the report, the group notes that a total of 15,281 deaths due to torture and medical negligence have been documented since 2011, including 198 children and 113 women, with torture practices continuing in Syria without any accountability for those involved.

Torture violations have continued for 12 years to date, with no accountability for those involved

The 45-page report sheds light on a large number of incidents of torture, and accounts by torture survivors and former prisoners, as well as incidents of death due to torture that have been documented in the last year, since June 26, 2022. The report notes that the phenomenon of torture is organically related to the process of arbitrary arrest and enforced disappearance, but is not restricted to those multi-faceted crimes. Today, over 155,000 people are still detained and/or forcibly disappeared at the hands of the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in Syria. The Syrian regime is responsible for 88 percent of all cases of enforced disappearance, with the overwhelming majority of these detainees being political prisoners who have been detained in the context of the popular uprising, all of whom have been subjected to one or multiple form(s) of torture for years. It is important to remember that there is no time limit or other limit to the torture inflicted on detainees, which starts from the very first moment after the victim’s arrest and which is carried out without any parameters that can be, even remotely, described as ‘legal’. What follows is endless suffering under the regime’s systemic and vast machinery of torture of various forms.

The report draws upon SNHR’s database, and its daily documentation efforts over the past year, including interviews with victims’ families, torture survivors and former prisoners released from the detention centers of the various parties to the conflict. To that end, this report contains 20 accounts, all of which have been obtained directly, rather than from second-hand sources. The figures included in this report are the outcome of a years-long process of daily monitoring and documentation since 2011 of incidents of arbitrary arrest and torture. The report categorizes the cases of death due to torture according to the victims’ governorate of origin in order to give a sense of the magnitude of loss and violence that each governorate has suffered compared to other governorates.

Fadel Abdul Ghany, SNHR Executive Director, says:

“This report comes at a time when some Arab states have decided to restore relations with the Syrian regime. We want this report to show those states and other states that the Syrian regime is still practicing the most horrendous methods of torture against women, children, and all arbitrarily detained victims, currently numbering approximately 136,000. Restoring relations with the Syrian regime before releasing detainees is giving the regime a green light to eliminate those detainees. It is well-known that the regime has an atrocious history involving the killing of thousands of political dissidents.”

Toll of torture victims between March 2011 and June 2023

The report documents the killing of 15,281 victims who died due to torture at the hands of the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in Syria between March 2011 and June 2023, including 198 children and 113 women (adult female). Of the 15,281 deaths due to torture, the Syrian regime is responsible for the killing of 15,039 individuals, including 190 children and 84 women, while ISIS is responsible for the killing of 32 victims, including one child and 14 women. Moreover, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is responsible for the killing of 34 individuals, including two children, due to torture, Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is responsible for the killing of 94 individuals, including two children and two women, and all armed opposition factions/Syrian National Army (SNA) is responsible for the killing of 53 individuals, including one child and two women. Finally, 29 individuals, including two children and one woman, died due to torture at the hands of other parties.

As the report confirms, the Syrian regime, which is responsible for the arrest of the largest proportion of Syrian citizens since 2011, is also still holding the largest proportion of detainees, as well as forcibly disappeared persons. In every case, torture continues for as long as the victim is in detention. The report also documents many cases in which the regime uses torture against a victim for their connection to an area with a well-known history of opposing the regime as a form of collective retaliation in their detention centers. The report records that the people of the two governorates of Homs and Daraa have experienced more bereavements as a result of deaths due to torture than any other governorate. The report also includes a running count of the toll of deaths due to torture in Syria since 2011.

Law No. 16 ‘The Law on Criminalizing Torture’, promulgated by the Syrian regime in March 2022, is meaningless

The report sheds light on Law No. 16, which was promulgated by the Syrian regime on March 30, 2022. The report stresses that, as SNHR predicted, this law has proven to be nothing more than empty words, and will do nothing to deter the regime’s security apparatus from its systemic practice of torture for long as the ruling regime’s other oppressive laws remain in effect, all of which provide the regime’s security apparatus with official impunity against prosecution, despite contradicting with many of the articles of the Syrian Penal Code and the current constitution. To make matters worse, the law lacks any genuine or clear mechanism that victims’ families and surviving torture victims could use to report the torture being inflicted or take legal action given the absolute hegemony of the regime’s security apparatus, and the absence of any guarantee of safety or protection for a complainant, such as ensuring they maintain anonymity or of any protection for witnesses, experts and their family members. Moreover, the report documents that no fewer than 48 individuals died due to torture at the hands of the Syrian regime between March 30, 2022, when Law No. 16 was passed, and June 2023. In addition, the report records many summons being issued by security forces in all Syria’s governorates to torture victims’ family members to bring them in for interrogation and order them not to publicize the news of their loved ones’ deaths, threatening them with arrest for failure to comply.

The report stresses that, according to international humanitarian law, leaders and higher-ranking officers are responsible for the war crimes committed by their subordinates. In this context, the report contains a new list of names involved in torture practices inside the main detention centers and the military units, drawing upon SNHR’s database on the perpetrators of violations. Relatedly, the report calls on the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (COI) to expose the names of individuals who have been conclusively identified as being involved in horrific violations that constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Finally, the report provides further confirmation that all controlling forces in Syria have used torture against their opponents, and that those practices continue to this day. Moreover, the report stresses that the Syrian regime has explicitly violated the texts of the Syrian Constitution, and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which Syria ratified in 2004. The Syrian regime has also manipulated and tampered with laws and legislative articles in order to shield its forces from any potential prosecution.

The report calls on the UN, including the Security Council, to devise a mechanism to oblige all parties to the conflict, especially the Syrian regime, to put an end to torture practices, and to disclose the locations of the victims’ bodies, and return these to their families. The report also calls on the international community to enact new punitive measures against the Syrian regime to deter it from killing Syrian citizens under torture, and to put pressure on the other parties to the conflict, through all means possible, and to put a true end to the use of torture, in addition to making other recommendations.

Download the full report

Press Release:

Paris – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) has released a report entitled, ‘SNHR Obtains Hundreds of Death Certificates for Forcibly Disappeared Persons by the Syrian Regime, Their Families Have Not been Notified of Their Deaths, and Civil Register Offices Have Not Announced Them’, in which it reveals that the Syrian regime has registered thousands of forcibly disappeared persons as dead, including prominent activists from the popular uprising against its rule.
The 29-page report explains that in early 2018, SNHR noticed that many families with forcibly disappeared relatives held in regime detention centers had begun receiving death certificates issued for their missing relatives. The documents in question were issued without any regime organ issuing any official notification. Instead, the families simply learnt of the existence of these death certificates when visiting civil register offices to conduct regular transactions and file paperwork. As the news spread, hundreds of other families of forcibly disappeared persons flocked to civil register offices to obtain family statements in the hope that these might contain information about the fate of their own missing loved ones.
Since the beginning of 2022, the report adds, SNHR has been receiving death certificates issued by regime authorities for individuals whose cases had not been revealed before, and whose families were unaware of their status. Those death certificates were not obtained through the civil register offices either. Some of these death certificates were issued for very prominent activists from the popular uprising against the Syrian regime, as well as for women and children. SNHR, consequently, utilized its own network of relationships and sources in Syria, which we have built up over the past 11 years, to obtain hundreds of new death certificates. At this point, SNHR’s team has accrued great experience with respect to reviewing and verifying certificates.
Fadel Abdul Ghany, director of SNHR says:
“We have stressed previously that the Syrian regime may have recorded the deaths of hundreds of detainees who were forcibly disappeared in its detention centers at the civil registry. We also noted that such practices may even date back to before 2018, but were only revealed by the Syrian regime at the beginning of 2018, yet we never had proof of this before now. After obtaining hundreds of death certificates that have never been made public before, we can now confirm as a fact what we have long suspected, namely that the families of these dead people were never notified that their loved ones had been registered as dead at the civil registry. We are referring here to people who were arrested by the Syrian regime and who then went on to become forcibly disappeared, with no-one knowing anything about their fate. We seriously fear that the tens of thousands of other people still classified as forcibly disappeared in the Syrian regime’s detention centers have also met their demise.”
As the report reveals, between 2018 and 2021, SNHR received and stored approximately 1,062 death certificates. Since the beginning of 2022, we have obtained 547 new death certificates that were not issued by civil register offices. Additionally, the families of the persons named in those documents had not been made aware of their loved ones’ deaths. As such, SNHR holds the Syrian regime responsible for the killing of 547 Syrian citizens who were forcibly disappeared in its prisons.
A total of 1,609 of the individuals forcibly disappeared in regime detention centers between the start of 2018 and November 2022 have now been registered as dead, including 24 children, 21 women (adult female), and 16 medics. Nonetheless, these documents do not specify any cause of death. Furthermore, the Syrian regime has failed to return the bodies of those certified as dead to their families or even to inform them of their loved ones’ grave location, as well as failing to notify any of the families of their loved ones’ deaths at the time when they occurred. Among these cases are four that were previously identified in leaked photos from the Syrian regime’s military hospitals.
On analyzing the data, one finds that the largest percentage of the 1,609 cases recorded were arrested by Syrian regime forces in 2012, followed by 2013, then 2014. Notably, those three years also recorded the highest rates of enforced disappearances into regime detention centers as documented on SNHR’s database.
Furthermore, 2014 saw the largest percentage of the 1,609 cases documented according to the death certificates issued by the civil register offices, followed by 2013, and then 2015. Notably, those years also saw the highest documented toll of deaths due to torture at the hand of Syrian regime forces according to SNHR’s database. Additionally, Damascus suburbs governorate saw the highest figures of all Syrian governorate in terms of the number of victims of enforced disappearance recorded, with at least 15,703 persons from that governorate documented as being forcibly disappeared. Damascus suburbs has the sixth largest toll of deaths due to torture across Syria with no fewer than 1,692 of the victims who died due to torture coming from that area.
The report stresses that the Syrian regime began registering forcibly disappeared persons as dead in 2013, but this information was not made publicly available until early 2018. In this, the report outlines the process adopted by the Syrian regime to register those deaths, describing it as a ‘a complex bureaucratic process’ that implicates multiple government institutions, the most important of which are the state security apparatuses. The process starts at the National Security Office, Syria’s highest military and security authority, which is headed by the President of the Republic, at the request of the heads of the security agencies and military prisons. The National Security Office sends special reports on those who died in detention centers, together with their personal information and cause of death, to the Military Police. These reports and data are submitted to the Military Police, as well as to the National Security Office, in a phased fashion over time. From there, the office organizes the data and sends it to the Ministry of Interior, again in batches, with the interior ministry in turn resending it to the secretaries of the civil register offices according to which the civil registry stores the information on each of the dead detainees in question. Thereafter, civil register office employees enter the incidents of death into their records in line with the instructions received.
The report notes that there are two types of death data in the civil register offices: The first type are those death certificates issued to the families of the deceased by the civil register offices upon the families filing the paperwork requesting a death certificate. In most of these documents the place of death is given as Damascus, which houses the largest number of detention centers where deaths of forcibly disappeared persons take place. However, the death certificates issued do not specify in which detention center the victims’ death took place. The second type are the death certificates that are not accessible to families, with this data remaining stored at the civil register offices. Notably, these certificates include the place of death. SNHR has been able to obtain a number of those death certificates, with most giving Tishreen Military Hospital or the Field Military Court as the place of death. We believe this indicates that the victims in question received a death sentence.

The report stresses that the system adopted by the Syrian regime to register forcibly disappeared persons dead without notifying their families is a damning demonstration of the regime’s fascism and its chilling contempt for the lives of its citizens who are subjected to a level of barbarism that blatantly violates every norm and law. It seems that these strategies are deliberately designed and calculated, so as to cause the greatest psychological trauma to the families of the missing to continue the regime’s policy of collective punishment against everyone who was involved in or supportive of the popular uprising for democracy since March 2011. In many cases, families are terrified to reveal the death of their forcibly disappeared loved ones, or to arrange a funeral for them, fearing that doing so may put themselves and other family members at risk of being questioned or persecuted by the regime’s security agencies.
The report concludes that the Syrian regime has failed to uphold the legal protocols and procedures of registering deaths at its detention centers, which should be done through the public attorney or their deputy who, according to the law, is supposed to deal with incidents of death in custody and submit their findings to the secretary of the civil record within the legally specified time. In this, the Syrian regime has violated Articles 38 and 39 of Law No. 13 of 2012 which includes the new Syrian Civil State Law. Additionally, the Syrian regime has violated the legal protocols and regulations related to graves. According to the Syrian Penal Code, burying the dead is a crime if it is done for the purpose of hiding the death.
The report proves that, through the strategy of enforced disappearance, the Syrian regime is further terrorizing and collectively punishing anyone and everyone connected with or supportive of the popular uprising against the Assad family’s dictatorial rule. On analysis of this data, one can clearly see that such strategies are common regime practice, particularly in the areas of Syria that famously joined the uprising, in a way that demonstrates a consistent and deliberate policy and system. Enforced disappearance is prohibited according to customary international law; Rule 98 prohibits enforced disappearance in international and non-international armed conflicts.
The report recommends that the UN Security Council and the United Nations hold an emergency meeting to discuss the Syrian regime’s registering tens of thousands of forcibly disappeared persons as dead, while failing to notify the victims’ families of those deaths. Additionally, the report calls on the United Nations and the Security Council to issue a Resolution under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter condemning the Syrian regime’s killing of forcibly disappeared persons in regime detention centers, and demanding that the regime reveals their fate.
Furthermore, the report calls on the international community to act urgently and decisively to save the remaining detainees before they meet the fate of death due to torture and abysmal imprisonment conditions, as well as to take serious steps towards helping achieve political change to save the Syrian people from dictatorship and despotism, in addition to making a number of other recommendations.

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Press release:

(Link below to download full report)

Paris – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) today issues its 11th annual report on torture in Syria, marking the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, which falls annually on June 26. In the latest report, SNHR reveals that torture has been used as a systemic and ongoing strategy for 11 years and that the documented death toll of those killed under torture has reached 14,685 individuals, from March 2011 until June 2022, including 181 children and 94 women (adult female), with the vast majority of all these victims killed at the hands of Syrian regime forces.

The 45-page report includes details of a wide range of incidents of torture and testimonies of survivors of detention and torture, as well as deaths due to torture, that we have documented over the past year, since June 26, 2021. The report notes torture, prohibited in the harshest terms in international law, continues to be widely practiced in Syria against political dissidents or military opponents, among the parties to the conflict, or by the controlling forces against civilian citizens of the society that they govern, with the aim of extending their control, denying fundamental human rights, and suppressing any dissent or exercising of democracy. The report adds that the process of arresting people in Syria is in itself a form of torture because it takes place without presenting any judicial arrest warrant, which is a common practice by the parties to the conflict and the controlling forces and leads inevitably to other types of torture. The report also confirms that the vast majority of detainees go on to be classified as forcibly disappeared, with enforced disappearance also being among the cruelest forms of torture.
The report is based on the SNHR’s database and the daily documentation work conducted over a year, including interviews we conducted with the families of victims and survivors of torture inflicted in detention centers run by various parties to the conflict, providing 13 accounts, which we obtained directly rather than from open sources. The statistics included in this report are also based on the cumulative work, resulting from the daily monitoring and documentation work that we have carried out continuously since 2011 up to the current moment concerning incidents of arbitrary arrest and torture. The report categorizes the deaths due to torture according to the governorate which each victim comes from, rather than the place where the torture took place, in order to show the extent of the loss and violence suffered by the people of that governorate compared to other governorates.

Fadel Abdul Ghany, SNHR’s Director, says:
“Torture in Syria has been practiced at the same frequent and systematic pace since 2011. We have no belief or hope that it will stop being perpetrated by the Syrian regime or the other parties to the conflict without a political change away from the existing leaders who have conducted no investigation or imposed any serious accountability for those involved in torture. We are still documenting brutal torture cases and deaths due to torture, and we fear for the fate of tens of thousands of forcibly disappeared people.”

As the report reveals, between March 2011 and June 2022, at least 14,685 individuals, including 181 children and 94 women (adult female), have been killed as a result of torture at the hands of the parties to the conflict and the controlling forces in Syria, with the Syrian regime being responsible for the deaths of 14,464 of these cases, including 174 children and 75 women. Meanwhile, ISIS is responsible for the deaths of 32, including one child and 14 women, while Hay’at Tahrir al Sham is responsible for the deaths of 31, including two children, due to torture. Additionally, as the report notes, 83 individuals, including one child and two women, were killed as a result of torture by Syrian Democratic Forces, while 50, including one child and two women, were killed as a result of torture by all Armed Opposition factions/Syrian National Army. The report also documents the deaths of 25 individuals, including two children and one woman, at the hands of other parties.

As the report further discloses, the Syrian regime, which is responsible for the arrest of by far the largest number of Syrian citizens, continues to detain or forcibly disappear the great majority of them, with torture continuing throughout the duration of every person’s detention. The report details the Syrian regime’s use of torture, perpetrated in many cases in connection with the victim’s affiliation with a certain area known for opposing the Syrian regime as a form of collective retribution, in the regime’s detention centers, and notes that the governorates of Daraa and Homs have seen the highest numbers of residents killed due to torture. The report also outlines the cumulative indicator of the torture death toll in Syria since 2011.

The report also explains that Syrian regime has established ‘laws’ that allow torture and prevent criminals from being held accountable, as well as giving complete immunity from prosecution to those who carry out its orders, with the report outlining the most prominent of these laws, adding that the highly centralized nature of the Syrian regime means that it could not torture at least tens of thousands of detainees and kill vast numbers of them without direct orders from the individual at the head of this pyramid, namely the President of the Republic. The report further notes that the Syrian regime’s systematic use of torture and the vast number of associated deaths necessitates the participation of not just one but several state institutions.
The report adds that under international humanitarian law, commanders and other senior officials are held responsible for war crimes committed by their subordinates, with the report providing the names of the most prominent leaders of the Syrian regime involved in torture, according to the SNHR’s database of data of perpetrators of violations. The report also demands that the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria should reveal the names of individuals whose involvement in committing egregious violations, including the crime of torture, constituting crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The report documents the deaths of at least 11 individuals due to torture in the Syrian regime’s detention centers since the issuance of Law No. 16 criminalizing torture on March 30, 2022. In addition, the report records many summonses by the regime’s security services in various Syrian governorates targeting the torture victims’ family members, who were investigated and warned against announcing the deaths of their loved ones, being themselves threatened with arrest if they did so. This confirms that the law criminalizing torture is an empty formality created for the sake of appearance.

Finally, the report confirms that all the controlling forces in Syria have inflicted torture on their opponents, with these practices still ongoing to date, noting that the Syrian regime has clearly violated the provisions of the Syrian constitution and the provisions of the Convention against Torture which Syria ratified in 2004, as well as tampering with existing laws by enacting legislation that protects its forces from any prosecution.

The report recommends that the UN Security Council and the United Nations should devise a mechanism to compel all parties to the conflict, especially the Syrian regime, to stop torture, and to reveal the locations of the victims’ bodies and hand them over to the victims’ families.
The report also recommends that the international community should take serious punitive measures against the Syrian regime to deter it from continuing to kill Syrian citizens under torture, and to put pressure on the other parties to the conflict in all possible ways to stop practicing torture once and for all.
The report also provides several other additional recommendations.

Download the full report

Press release:
Paris – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) reveals in its report released today that the ‘Laws’ 15 and 16 issued by the Syrian regime are textually flawed and impossible to implement. The report explains the reasons for this assessment in detail, adding that the Syrian regime’s security services are placed above the laws, meaning that none of those involved in the crime of torture, which constitutes a crime against humanity, have been held accountable.

The 14-page report notes that the Syrian regime has recently issued Law No. 16 of 2022 criminalizing torture as a pro forma response to a Dutch/Canadian move before the International Court of Justice, explaining that it is a law impossible to implement in light of the existing repressive environment, and the existence of an arsenal of laws that protect the security services from accountability. The report adds that the Syrian regime’s issuing this law is an empty official attempt to show a superficial commitment to compliance with the provisions of the Convention against Torture to which Syria acceded in 2004, even though it has not taken any legislative, judicial, administrative, educational, media, or other measures ever since to end the phenomenon of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, which is very common in all branches of the regime’s security services and police stations.

As the report further explains, the Syrian regime exercises absolute control over the legislative process because the executive authority/security services have dominance over the legislative authority, represented by the People’s Assembly (Parliament), nearly two-thirds of whose seats have been held by the Ba’ath Party since 1973, abetted by the power and intimidation of the security services. In addition, the 2012 constitution, like its predecessor, confers godlike, absolute powers on the president of the republic, elevating him to the status of a sacrosanct being with total control over all aspects of the three powers – executive, judicial and legislative, in addition to being the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Armed Forces. Based on all of these factors, the Syrian regime can easily introduce whatever laws it wishes and amend them according to its interests, whether through the People’s Assembly or directly through the President in person under the name of ‘legislative decrees’.

The report notes that since the Ba’ath Party took control of power, the Syrian regime has introduced dozens of fabricated charges to be brought against whoever the regime wishes to target among citizens, especially dissidents, opponents, and activists. It has also enacted exceptional laws and other legislation that complement its repressive nature and practices through arrests/detentions carried out by its security services and the subsequent torture, enforced disappearances, and summary trials, all of which are used as tools for applying collective punishment against all societal groups. The report adds that the Counter-Terrorism Law, the General Penal Code, and the Military Penal Code are among the most prominent laws used to try detainees. In most cases, the exceptional courts at which the detainees are tried use a range of main charges which are particularized according to the detainees’ cases; this means the detainee is not charged with a single charge, but rather a set of charges, none of which are based on evidence or facts.

In addition, the report notes that the regime issued Law No. 15, on March 28, 2022, amending the General Penal Code, with the report listing the main amendments concerning detainees based on their expressions of opinion or the basis of the conflict. The report further reveals that the amendments issued by the Syrian regime in accordance with Law 15/2022 have been expanded with the introduction of new crimes even more vaguely defined than previously, capable of subjecting an even wider range of civilians to prosecution for exercising the slightest form of expression of opinion or the mildest criticism of the state’s authority. The report explains that these amendments were issued by the regime in an effort to quell the increasing incidence of popular tension prevailing in the areas under regime control, even by regime loyalists, due to the deterioration in economic and living conditions suffered by civilians. Consequently, anyone who criticizes almost anything is arrested, which further strengthens the authority’s iron grip and legitimizes arrests.

In a related context, the report reveals that there are fundamental faults in the text of Law 16 of 2022, supposedly issued to criminalize torture, on March 30, 2022, and provides details of five fundamental faults in the law’s text that empty it of any effectiveness and render it useless in practice. The report details these faults based on SNHR’s analysis of the texts of the law.

As the report reveals, the Syrian regime has actually legalized the crime of torture through many laws and decrees, doing so despite the fact that the current Syrian constitution, issued in 2012, prohibits arbitrary arrest and torture, and the General Penal Code includes provisions that impose a penalty of imprisonment for anyone who beats a person with a degree of severity during the investigation of crimes, and prohibits torture during investigation; however, there are legal texts that explicitly oppose previous constitutional articles, giving legalizing impunity, as officers, individuals, and employees of the security services enjoy a kind of impunity from prosecution before the judiciary, except with the approval of their superiors. The report explains that any prosecution conditional on obtaining such approval is considered unconstitutional and intrudes on the judicial authority, undermining its independence by placing a limitation that does not allow it to exercise its constitutional mandate without the approval of an official of the executive authority as stated in the texts the report analyzed.
The report further reveals that Syria under the current Syrian regime suffers from two problems in this context; the first in terms of the legal texts themselves, and the second in terms of applying the law, stressing that these articles of legislation, which are supposed to be legal texts but in reality constitute a violation of the law, are decrees and texts that legitimize crimes, violate even the 2012 constitution and violate fundamental tenets of human rights, constituting perpetuation of impunity. In addition, the Syrian regime’s failure to carry out any investigation or accountability for any member of the regime’s security forces, no matter how low-ranking, against the background of acts of torture, have all contributed to increasing the rate of torture. Indeed, the regime’s security services, in coordination with some doctors in military hospitals, are so sure of their impunity that they have invented new and horrific methods of torture that are even more brutal and savage than their usual methods and which have caused deaths due to torture to continue up to this day.

The report notes that the information contained on the SNHR database proves that the law criminalizing torture and any legislation enacted by the Syrian regime are useless as long as the regime remains in power since it has been the main perpetrator of violations of torture, arbitrary arrest/detention, and enforced disappearance since March 2011 to date, adding that at least 132,667 individuals are still under arrest or forcibly disappeared in the Syrian regime’s detention centers, including 3,658 children and 8,096 women (adult female), from March 2011 to March 2022.
Since the beginning of 2018 up until April 2022, the report has also been able to document at least 1,056 cases of forcibly disappeared persons whose deaths the Syrian regime revealed through the Civil Registry departments. SNHR believes that all of these people died as a result of torture and neglect of healthcare, despite the Syrian regime’s denials of having detained them.
The report also documents the deaths of at least 14,449 individuals who died due to torture and neglect of healthcare in the Syrian regime’s detention centers, including 174 children and 74 women, from March 2011 to March 2022.
The report emphasizes that there is no doubt that the latest law criminalizing torture will remain meaningless ink on paper and will not contribute in any way to deterring the security services from practicing torture as long as the regime’s other repressive laws are in force, which are the ones on which the regime is based.

The report stresses that the Syrian state centrally controls its detention centers, and these security centers are not subject to any judicial oversight by the Public Prosecution at all, contrary to the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, so it is highly unlikely that deaths due to torture could take place without the knowledge of the state’s ruling regime.
The report notes that although the Syrian regime is responsible for proving that the deaths that occurred were not due to torture and handing over the victims’ bodies to their families, it has not conducted a single investigation for eleven years. This alone constitutes clear evidence of conviction against it. In addition to these points, not only one of the Syrian regime’s organs involved in torture and in deaths due to torture, this requires the participation of several institutions in the state, most notably: the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Defense, the security services, the Public Prosecution, forensic medicine, civil prisons, military hospitals, the judicial institution, the Ministry of Awqaf, the burial office, and this It refers to a process of exceptional harmony and coordination between these institutions, and this can only be done by the management of higher levels in the Syrian regime that control all these institutions.
As the report reveals, the Syrian regime has not only brought charges against and tried detainees under the General Penal Code in the articles related to crimes against state security and the Military Field Court established in 1968 but also issued the Counter-Terrorism Law, in which it provided vague articles and ambiguous, non-specific definitions of terrorist acts and conspiracy, in tandem with another established exceptional criminal court for terrorism cases, according to which the largest possible number of detainees could be tried before the Counter-Terrorism Court, with the legislation leaving room for the judges to define and analyze the accusations made according to their own opinions, opening the door to the material exploitation and extortion of any detainee in exchange for their release or inclusion in the amnesty decrees issued.
The report stresses that there was no legal basis for the mechanism for criminalizing and charging political detainees originally, with charges brought either under the Counter-Terrorism Law or the General Penal Code based on confessions extracted from detainees under torture and coercion, which are not courts in any legal or judicial sense.
The report calls on the UN Security Council and the United Nation to find ways and mechanisms to implement Security Council Resolutions 2041, 2042, 2139, and Article 12 of Resolution 2254 regarding detainees and forcibly disappeared persons in Syria, to take steps to end arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture, and death due to torture in the Syrian regime’s detention centers, and to rescue the remaining detainees as soon as possible.
The report also provides other additional recommendations…

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Press release (Link below to download full report):
 
Paris – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) issued a report today condemning Syrian Democratic Forces’ forcible disappearance and killing by torture of Amin al Ali, noting that enforced disappearance and torture have become standard strategies used by the Syrian Democratic Forces, with nearly 3,417 persons forcibly disappeared and at least 67, including one child and two women, killed under torture in Syrian Democratic Forces’ detention centers since the group’s establishment.
 
The five-page report specifically concerns the arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearance, and killing under torture of the victim Amin Aisa al Ali by Syrian Democratic Forces. Al Ali, who was born in 1986 and lived in Hasaka city, was a member of the subcommittee of the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s Syria branch. As the report reveals, on the afternoon of Saturday, May 22, 2021, a patrol of Syrian Democratic Forces personnel (whose mainstay is the forces of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, which is the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK) carried out a raid on the home of Amin al Ali, without showing any judicial warrant, and arbitrarily arrested him. The next day, the family went to the security headquarters of the SDF’s ‘Asayish’ security forces, where they learnt that he had been detained by the party’s Military Prosecution division in Hasaka city, with his family members unable to obtain any official information about the charges against him throughout the entire duration of his detention, or to appoint a lawyer or visit him despite their repeated attempts.
 
As the report further reveals, on June 28, 2021, the family of the victim, Amin al Ali, received a call from the Martyr Sariya Military Hospital telling them to come to the hospital. Upon their arrival, Amin’s family members learned of his death while in detention. They were able to recover Amin’s body that evening from the People’s National Hospital in Hasaka, after obtaining approval from the Military Prosecution in Hasaka to do so. The report reports the victim’s relatives that Amin’s body clearly showed signs of severe torture.
 
The report notes that Amin al Ali had criticized the management of the Syrian Democratic Forces and the decisions issued by the Self-Management Authority on his Facebook account, sarcastically condemning them over the deterioration of living conditions; the report adds that it’s widely believed that this repeated criticism was probably the real primary motivation behind Syrian Democratic Forces’ arresting him and torturing him to death.
 
The report adds that Syrian Democratic Forces deny forcibly disappearing and torturing Amin, despite his family confirming that both took place. In this context, the report refers to a statement issued by Syrian Democratic Forces’ Self-Management of North and East Syria, in which it denied the violent torture of the victim and claimed that that the photos and videos which were widely shared and showed clear signs of horrendous torture on his body were fabricated, asserting that the cause of his death was a stroke, although Amin al Ali’s family issued a statement confirming that there were visible signs of torture on his body when they received it.
 
The report documents the deaths of at least eight people due to torture and neglect of healthcare in Syrian Democratic Forces’ detention centers, since the beginning of 2021, and at least four incidents of torture of detainees. The report also monitors a steep escalation of arrests, enforced disappearances and the suppression of freedoms in the areas under SDF’s control, mainly in Hasaka, Deir Ez-Zour and the northeastern suburbs of Aleppo, in connection with the people’s criticisms of its policies in the areas under its control.
 
The report stresses that international law wholly prohibits torture and other forms of cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment. This being a customary rule, states are prohibited from dismissing or undermining this rule in favor of other rights or values, even in times of emergency. Violating the laws prohibiting torture is an international crime under international criminal law, with those individuals who issued orders for torture, or assisted in its occurrence defined as being criminals with legal responsibility for these practices; Syrian Democratic Forces have practiced the crime of torture in a widespread manner, violating the right to life, with these actions constituting a flagrant violation of international human rights law.
 
The report notes that Syrian Democratic Forces have denied all cases of deaths due to torture by their personnel and have failed to open a single investigation or even to acknowledge these cases, or to compensate or apologize to the victims’ families; instead, they have launched fierce attacks through their media organs on human rights organizations and activists exposing their violations, slanderously accusing these organizations and activists in order to incite terrorism against and discredit these organizations and activists.
 
The report recommends that UN Security Council and the United Nations should condemn the Syrian Democratic Forces’ practices involving the crime of torture, and work seriously using all possible means to end them, in order to save thousands of persons forcibly disappeared by Syrian Democratic Forces from death due to torture, and that they should demand that the Syrian Democratic Forces reveal the fate of nearly 3,417 forcibly disappeared persons, and impose UN sanctions on individuals and entities involved in torture acts and death due to torture.
 
The report calls on the international community, the US-led coalition against ISIS, and the United States of America to take serious punitive measures against Syrian Democratic Forces to deter the group from continuing with its policies of enforced disappearances, torture and terrorizing of communities, and to open a serious investigation into the murder of Amin al Ali and hold those responsible for his execution to account, as well as providing a number of other recommendations.
 

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Press release:
 
(Link below to download full report)
 
Paris – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) today issues its tenth annual report on torture in Syria, marking the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, which falls annually on June 26. In the latest report, SNHR reveals that torture has been used as a systemic and ongoing strategy for ten years, and that the documented death toll of those killed under torture has reached 14,537 individuals, from March 2011 until June 2021, including 180 children and 92 women (adult female), with the vast majority of all these victims killed at the hands of Syrian regime forces.
 
The 49-page report includes details of a wide range of incidents of torture and testimonies of survivors of detention and torture, as well as deaths due to torture, that we have documented over the past year, since June 26, 2020. The report notes that from the earliest days of the uprising torture has been one of the primary violations perpetrated by the Syrian regime against political protesters, following their arbitrary arrest, with participants in peaceful demonstrations generally subjected to: beatings, insults, threats and arrests without a judicial warrant, as well as having their mobile phones confiscated, and being prevented from communicating with their families or a lawyer. Many of those detained in this way have subsequently been classified as forcibly disappeared. Each of these practices involves one or more forms of torture, with this torture often leading to the detainee’s death. The report adds that the crime of torture in Syria is systematic and widespread, most especially by the Syrian regime, which is detaining by far the largest number of detainees, with torture being widely practiced and having no known limits, meaning that there is no limitation or specific amount of torture inflicted due to the commission of any particular act.
 
The report stresses that the definition of torture adopted by the SNHR is the one cited in the United Nations’ 1984 Convention against Torture, explaining that our findings are based on interviews we conducted with the families of victims and survivors of torture inflicted in detention centers run by various parties to the conflict, providing 13 accounts, which we obtained directly rather than from open sources. The statistics included in this report are also based on the cumulative work, resulting from the daily monitoring and documentation work that we have carried out continuously since 2011 up to the current moment concerning incidents of arbitrary arrest and torture. The report categorizes the deaths due to torture according to the governorate which each victim comes from, rather than the place where the torture took place because, in most cases, the place where the incidents of and deaths by torture occurred are the detention centers in Damascus city, so we categorize deaths due to torture according to the governorate which the victim comes from in order to show the extent of the loss and violence suffered by the people of that governorate compared to other governorates.
 
Fadel Abdul Ghany, Director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, says:
“The massive extent of the torture, inflicted using unimaginably brutal methods, on a significant proportion of Syrian society numbering at least tens of thousands, by all parties to the conflict, most especially the Syrian regime, which weaponizes state institutions to serve as torture instruments, has generated a state of intense frustration towards the perpetrators of these violations, mixed with a strong desire for revenge; the continuing nature of the Syrian conflict, despite the passage of over a decade since it began, means that many members of society, who have been traumatized by torture and see no hope of justice, are like time bombs. The international community must lead the transitional justice process as quickly as possible.”
 
As the report documents, between March 2011 and June 2021, at least 14,537 individuals, including 180 children and 92 women (adult female), have been killed as a result of torture at the hands of the parties to the conflict and the controlling forces in Syria, with the Syrian regime is responsible for the deaths of 14,338 of these cases, including 173 children and 74 women. Meanwhile, ISIS is responsible for the deaths of 32, including one child and 14 women, while Hay’at Tahrir al Sham is responsible for the deaths of 28, including two children, due to torture. Additionally, as the report notes, 67 individuals, including one child and two women, were killed as a result of torture by Syrian Democratic Forces, while 47, including one child and one woman, were killed as a result of torture by the Armed Opposition/ Syrian National Army. The report also documents the deaths of 25 individuals, including two children and one woman, at the hands of other parties.
 
As the report reveals, the Syrian regime, which is responsible for the arrest of by far the largest number of Syrian citizens, continues to detain or forcibly disappears the great majority of them, with torture continuing throughout the duration of every person’s detention. The report details the Syrian regime’s use of torture, in many cases in connection with the victim’s affiliation with a certain area known for opposing the Syrian regime as a form of collective retribution, in the regime’s detention centers, and notes that the governorates of Daraa and Homs have seen the highest numbers of residents killed due to torture. The report also outlines the cumulative indicator of the torture death toll in Syria since 2011.
 
The report notes that Syrian regime has established ‘laws’ that allow torture and prevent criminals from being held accountable, as well as giving complete immunity from prosecution to those who carry out its orders, with the report outlining the most prominent of these laws, adding that the highly centralized nature of the Syrian regime means that it could not torture at least tens of thousands of detainees and kill vast numbers of them without direct orders from the individual at the head of this pyramid, namely the President of the Republic. The report further notes that the Syrian regime’s systematic use of torture and the vast number of associated deaths necessitates the participation of not just one but several state institutions.
 
The report adds that under international humanitarian law, commanders and other senior officials are held responsible for war crimes committed by their subordinates, with the report providing the names of the most prominent leaders of the Syrian regime involved in torture, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights database of data of perpetrators of violations. The report also demands that the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria should reveal the names of individuals whose involvement in committing egregious violations constituting crimes against humanity and war crimes it has verified.
 
The report emphasizes that all the parties to the conflict have practiced torture, even if they differ in terms of extent, manner and methods, noting that other parties to the conflict have replicated a large number of the methods practiced by the Syrian regime, which was the first party to practice torture and bears by far the greatest responsibility, being responsible for the vast majority of all documented deaths due to torture. The report describes 10 of the main torture methods practiced by all parties to the conflict within their detention centers.
 
Finally, the report welcomes the recent report from the Independent International Commission of Inquiry, issued in March 2021, noting that the Syrian Network for Human Rights contributed to this report through extensive sharing of a large quantity of data and information; SNHR believes that this report is of great importance and constitutes important material to hold the Syrian regime accountable and to help in obstructing all efforts aimed at rehabilitating it after it lost any legitimacy at the political and human rights levels among the most prominent and important countries in the world. The report also welcomes the Dutch, Canadian and German steps to hold perpetrators of torture in Syria accountable.
 
The report further stresses that international law wholly prohibits torture and other forms of cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment. This being a customary rule, states are prohibited from dismissing or undermining this rule in favor of other rights or values, even in times of emergency. Violating the laws prohibiting torture is an international crime under international criminal law, with those individuals who issued orders for torture, or assisted in its occurrence defined as being criminals with legal responsibility for these practices.
 
The report emphasizes that the Syrian regime has clearly violated the provisions of the Syrian constitution and the provisions of the Convention against Torture which Syria ratified in 2004, as well as tampering with existing laws by enacting legislation that protects its forces from any prosecution, noting that none of the parties to the conflict have opened any investigations into the practices of torture, with none of their members suspected of being involved in committing this violation being held accountable, and no apology or compensation being offered to the victims.
 
The report recommends that the UN Security Council and the United Nations should condemn the Syrian regime’s practices involving the crime of torture and work seriously using all possible means to stop it, in order to save tens of thousands of detained Syrian citizens from death due to torture.
 
The report also calls on the UN General Assembly to UN General Assembly to seize the initiative in the Syrian situation and resort to invoking the principle of Uniting for Peace; the report also calls for imposing UN sanctions on individuals and entities involved in torture acts and death due to torture.
 
The report also recommends that States which are parties to the Convention against Torture should take the necessary measures to establish their jurisdiction over perpetrators of torture and join the Dutch, Canadian and German efforts to hold the Syrian regime accountable for the crime of torture, as well as providing a number of other recommendations.
 

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Press release:
 
(Link below to download full report)
 
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) reveals in its report released today, marking the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, that at least 14,388 individuals have been killed due to torture by the main perpetrator parties to the conflict in Syria from march 2011 until June 2020.
 
The 45-page report focuses on the violations SNHR documented since the last report, from June 26, 2019, to June 26, 2020, as well as providing the total documented death toll of victims who died due to torture between March 2011 and June 2020. The report also addresses the almost complete lack of any inclusion of detainees in all amnesty decrees, and the torture practiced against them.
 
The report stresses that the definition of torture adopted by the SNHR is the one cited in Article 1 of the United Nations’ 1984 Convention against Torture, explaining that it relies mainly on SNHR’s archive of victims, as well as on the archive of detainees and enforced disappearances, resulting from the daily monitoring and documentation carried out continuously since 2011 up to the current moment concerning incidents of torture, arrest and enforced disappearance. The report is also based on the interviews conducted with families of victims and survivors of torture from different Syrian governorates, providing nine accounts, which were obtained directly rather than from open sources.
 
The report notes that given the Syrian state’s central control of its detention centers, it is highly unlikely that deaths due to torture could take place without the knowledge of the state’s ruling regime, noting that the Syrian regime bears responsibility for proving its claims that the deaths that occurred in regime custody were not due to torture. The report notes that the regime’s failure to conduct even a single investigation into any of these deaths in nine years alone constitutes clear and damning evidence of the regime’s culpability. In addition to this, the report emphasizes that several state institutions are involved in torture and deaths due to torture, the most prominent of which are: the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Defense, the security services, civil prisons, military hospitals, the judiciary, the Ministry of Awqaf, and the Office of Burial Services. The report notes that the involvement of all these state bodies also indicates a high level of coordination and harmony between these institutions, which can only be achieved by senior-level management officials in the Syrian regime controlling all of these institutions.
 
Fadel Abdul Ghany, Chairman of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, says:
“The Committee against Torture should make far greater efforts in Syria, which has witnessed torture that is considered to be the most severe worldwide, amounting to crimes against humanity, and it should clearly show the extent of the Syrian regime’s violation of the Convention against Torture and international law in its annual report to all States parties to the Convention and to the General Assembly. The states which ratified the Convention should join forces to prevent the Syrian regime from the brutal torture practices that have continued for nine years now. Otherwise, what is the use of the Convention against Torture?”
 
As the report reveals, between March 2011 and June 2020, at least 14,388 individuals, including 177 children and 63 women (adult female), have been killed as a result of torture at the hands of the main perpetrator parties in Syria, of whom the Syrian regime is responsible for the deaths of 14,235, including 173 children and 46 women, ISIS is responsible for the deaths of 32, including one child and 14 women. As for Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, it is responsible for the deaths of 26, including one child, due to torture. According to the report, 52 individuals, including one child and two women, were killed as a result of torture by Syrian Democratic Forces, while 43, including one child and one woman, were killed as a result of torture by factions of the Armed Opposition.
 
The report emphasizes that whilst all parties to the conflict in Syria have committed the crime of torture in one form or another, the Syrian regime, which controls the country’s military, security and judicial apparatus, is by far the most prolific offender, arresting at least 1.2 million Syrian citizens, who have been subjected in one way or another to torture and humiliation, with the regime still detaining the largest number of prisoners as of the time of releasing this report; in view of this massive number of detainees, 85 percent of whom have been forcibly disappeared, it can clearly be seen that the death toll of torture victims by the regime is far higher than those inflicted by all other parties to the conflict. As the report further reveals, the main cause of death due to torture is negligence in providing health care for wounds and illness, leaving the victim suffering untreated until he or she dies, with the report further noting that numerous methods of torture are used that make detainees an exceptionally vulnerable group which is exposed to a serious risk of the spread of the COVID-19 among them.
 
The report also reveals that the governorates of Homs and Daraa have seen the highest numbers of residents killed due to torture in this period, with the report distributing the deaths due to torture according to the governorate which the victim comes from, rather than the place where the torture took place because, in most cases, the place where the incident and the deaths by torture occurred are the detention centers in Damascus, so we distribute the deaths due to torture according to the governorate which the victim comes from in order to show the extent of the loss and violence suffered by the people of that governorate compared to other governorates. The report adds that the Syrian regime’s use of torture takes place in many cases against the background of the victim’s affiliation with an area that opposes the Syrian regime as a form of collective retaliation in the regime’s detention centers.
 
The report refers to the SNHR’s team’s regular periodic correspondence with the UN Special Rapporteurs on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions and on Torture. The Rapporteurs correspond with the Syrian regime about some the cases submitted which SNHR has been able to verify, which are also listed in the special annex in the report prepared by the UN Group on Torture in Syria. The report notes that there’s a devoted form on the SNHR’s official website that families can fill out, with the completed forms submitted automatically to the SNHR’s arrest and torture department’s team responsible for following up on each case, which then communicates with the families to complete the documentation and registration process. In this context, the report requests further cooperation from victims’ families in order to submit as many cases as possible to the UN Special Rapporteurs on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions and on Torture, noting that the SNHR’s team works 24/7 to build broad relationships with the families of the torture victims, to obtain as much information as possible which is stored on SNHR’s database dedicated specifically to victims of torture.
 
The report reveals that the amnesty decrees have not ended or even reduced the frequency of torture or arrest by the Syrian regime, with the Syrian regime issuing nearly 17 amnesty decrees, which focused on securing the release of perpetrators of crimes, felonies and offences, while including only a very small number of detainees referred to exceptional courts such as the Counter-Terrorism Court and the military field courts, and excluding the largest proportion of detainees who were not subjected to any trial during the years of their detention, who have been classified as forcibly disappeared.
 
The report further reveals that at least 116 individuals were released from the Syrian regime’s detention centers, between the issuance of Amnesty Decree No. 6 on March 22, 2020, and June 26, 2020. This record includes only those arrested in connection with their participation and activities in the popular uprising for democracy, or those who were randomly arrested or detained based on malicious security reports without a warrant, with the security branches conducting investigations into them and extracting confessions under torture.
 
The report notes that SNHR did not document any cases of release from detention centers of the four security branches (Military Security, Air Security, Political Security, and State Security) during this period, either from their central headquarters in Damascus city or their branches across the governorates, noting that these branches possess the powers to not implement laws even if they include cases to which the provisions of the amnesty decree apply.
 
The report outlines the death toll due to torture since the issuance of Decree No. 6/2020, with SNHR documenting the deaths of at least 33 individuals, including one woman, due to torture and medical negligence in the Syrian regime’s detention centers between March 22, 2020, and June 26, 2020, some of whom were arrested after the issuance of Decree No. 6, dying a few weeks after their arrest. Meanwhile, the bodies of five detainees were handed oved to their families, bearing signs of torture, with the report revealing that the remaining victims’ bodies have not been handed over to their families. In addition, the report notes, a number of those victims had previously undergone a settlement of their security status.
 
The report stresses that international law wholly prohibits torture and other forms of cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment. This being a customary rule, states are prohibited from dismissing or undermining this rule in favor of other rights or values, even in times of emergency. Violating the laws prohibiting torture is an international crime according to international criminal law, with those individuals who issued orders for torture, or assisted in its occurrence defined as being criminals with legal responsibility for these practices.
 
The report notes that the Syrian regime has clearly violated the provisions of the Syrian constitution and the provisions of the Convention against Torture that Syria ratified in 2004, as well as tampering with existing laws by enacting legislation that protects its forces from any prosecution, noting that Syrian Democratic Forces, factions of the Armed Opposition, and -Hay’at Tahrir al Sham bear responsibility for the torture that took place in their detention centers.
 
The report recommends that the UN Security Council and the United Nations should protect civilians detained by the Syrian regime from torture and lethal torture, and to rescue those who remain alive.
The report also calls on the UN General Assembly to take the initiative in the Syrian situation and resort to invoking the principle of Uniting for Peace, given the total paralysis affecting the Security Council due to the Russian-Chinese veto.
 
The report also recommends that all UN relief agencies should search for families that have lost their primary breadwinner or one of their members due to torture, to ensure that aid is continuously delivered to their beneficiaries, and to initiate rehabilitation.
 
The report stresses the imperative need for States which are parties to the Convention against Torture to take the necessary measures to establish their jurisdiction over perpetrators of torture and to make all the necessary material and security efforts to attain this objective.
 
The report provides a set of recommendations for Syrian Democratic Forces, extremist Islamist groups, and factions of the Armed Opposition, urging them to adhere to the standards of international human rights law, stop the use of torture against political or military opponents, launch investigations into those involved in these crimes, and hold them accountable.
 

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Press release:
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) states in its latest report issued today that it has documented 72 torture methods which the Syrian regime continues to practice in its detention centers and military hospitals, calling on the US Congress to pass the Caesar Act to provide accountability after identifying 801 individuals who appeared in the photographs smuggled out by the former regime photographer codenamed Caesar.
 
As the report reveals, almost 1.2 million Syrian citizens have been arrested and detained at some point in the Syrian regime’s detention centers, including 130,000 individuals are still detained or forcibly disappeared by the Syrian regime, since the start of the popular uprising for democracy in Syria in March 2011.
 
The 65-page report states that torture in the Syrian 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.
 
Fadel Abdul Ghany, Chairman of SNHR, says:
“The Syrian people have the right to help from the rest of the world’s states that have ratified the Geneva Conventions in ensuring that the Syrian regime respects the implementation of the Geneva Conventions and that it stops systematically torturing Syrians to death, both of which constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes. This is not only the duty of the Security Council that failed in protecting the Syrians, but of all the countries of the world, which have a shared and urgent responsibility to help end the brutal torture that tens of thousands of Syrians continue to be subjected to. Moreover, Caesar’s photographs will always provide overwhelming evidence of the systematic torture inflicted on Syrians, with nobody helping to stop the recurrence of these atrocities since the rest of the world’s governments first saw the Caesar photographs and up to the current date. The sadistic methods of torture adopted constitute a threat to the very essence of all humanity, not just to the Syrian people or to the people of the region.”
 
The report stresses that, despite the overwhelming evidence against it, the Syrian regime has not admitted to any torture in its facilities or carried out any investigation. Instead, the regime continues to support the officers who issued the torture orders, promoting them to senior positions, and using other state institutions as part of its torture machine by registering the forcibly disappeared persons killed in its detention centers as deceased at civil registry departments often years after their demise, in violation of Syrian law and the rules of registration of deaths in prisons, which are provided for in articles 38 and 39 of the Syrian Civil Status Law. The Syrian regime also violated the Syrian Constitution, specifically in paragraph 2 of Article 53.
 
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. In selecting the accounts included, the report takes into account the different years in which incidents took place and the diversity of governorates and detention centers where they happened, as well as the variety of methods of torture suffered by survivors, their severity, and in the detainees’ sex, gender, age, and religious and cultural backgrounds in order to emphasize that torture affects all segments of Syrian society.
 
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 is also supported by evidence from another Syrian Network for Human Rights’ database containing data on thousands of individuals, officials, leaders and officers with the regime whom multiple articles of evidence suggests are involved in violations, crimes against humanity and war crimes, with the report including details of those officials those who SNHR believes are the most notable individuals responsible for torture in order that they may ultimately be prosecuted and convicted.
 
The report notes that the SNHR team conducts regular periodic correspondence with the UN Group on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions concerning victims who died due to Torture in Syria. The report further notes that SNHR has issued a special form dedicated to documenting such incidents on the SNHR official website that families can fill out, with the completed forms submitted automatically to the SNHR team responsible for following up on each case, which then communicates with the families to complete the documentation and registration process.
 
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.
The report also reveals that 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 report explains that the methods and patterns of torture used by Syrian Regime forces in regime detention centers are numerous and so widely practiced that there was hardly any survivor who did not report being subjected to at least one and usually several of these methods. The report classifies patterns of torture into seven main categories, with each sub-type consisting of several secondary methods, constituting a total of 72 methods of torture used by the Syrian Regime forces against detainees, noting that there may be other methods used which SNHR has not yet been able to identify and document. The report emphasizes that a detainee may be subjected to a variety of torture methods during a single torture session.
 
The report reveals that 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’.
 
The report reveals that the 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.
 
In this context, the report states that SNHR cross-checked these 801 photos with those included on its database listing cases of enforced disappearance, finding that most of the victims shown had previously been registered there as enforced disappearances, in addition to cross-checking each of the people shown against the database of individuals believed to have died due to torture; the report points out that there was an intersection of 16 percent with the database of victims of torture, that is to say, 124 of the cases registered in the SNHR’s database out of the 801 forced disappearance cases had died due to torture. The report further reveals that following the release of the Caesar photos, all 801 cases were confirmed as having died due to torture. These individuals whose identities have been confirmed are thus no longer registered as forcibly disappeared, despite the fact that their families haven’t received their bodies, because the Caesar photographs clearly prove the deaths of these detainees.
 
The report distributes these 801 cases across the Syrian governorates, with the highest percentage of victims whose photos we have identified being from Damascus Suburbs with 65.42 percent, followed by Daraa governorate with 25.84 percent, and thirdly, Homs governorate with 2.62 percent.
The report also distributes the same 801 cases according to the security branch’s detention centers where believed they died, noting that the highest death rate was recorded in Branch 215, followed by Branch 227.
 
As the report notes, Syrian Regime forces have systematically and extensively practiced the crime of torture, reaching the extent of deliberately killing victims, violating the right to life, as well as constituting a flagrant violation of international human rights law. It has been proved beyond doubt that the Syrian regime is fully aware of this and of the certainty that the inhuman conditions of detention and the brutal methods of torture routinely and inevitably lead to continuous suffering and pain and regularly to death. Despite knowing all of this, the regime has done nothing to stop these criminal actions. Killings as a result of torture constitute crimes against humanity under Article VII of the Rome Statute and flagrant violations of international humanitarian law, which amount to war crimes, forming a systematic and repetitive pattern, and can thus be classified as extermination. This is also a flagrant violation of Syrian law and of the Syrian constitution.
 
The report recommends that UN Security Council should protect civilians detained by the Syrian regime from torture and lethal torture, rescue those who remain alive, establish a mechanism to compel the Syrian regime to end practices of torture, and to reveal the whereabouts of the bodies of the victims and to hand these over to their families. The report also recommends that all UN relief agencies should search for families that have lost their primary breadwinner or one of their children due to torture, to ensure that aid is continuously delivered to their beneficiaries, and to initiate rehabilitation.
 
The report also recommends that the United Nations General Assembly should take the initiative in the Syrian situation and resort to invoking the principle of Uniting for Peace, given the total paralysis affecting the Security Council due to the Russian-Chinese veto, blocking the referral of the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court.
 
The report stresses that states which are parties to the Convention against Torture must take the necessary measures to establish their jurisdiction over perpetrators of torture and make all the necessary material and security efforts for this objective, and to take serious punitive measures against the Syrian regime to deter it from continuing to kill Syrian citizens under torture, including political, economic, and military measures, including no-fly zones.
 
The report urges the international community to form a coalition of civilized nations as a matter of urgency to intervene politically and militarily to protect civilians and save tens of thousands of detainees from death due to torture, given the failure of the Security Council to protect detainees who have become hostages to the Syrian regime which is, as a result, killing whoever it wishes by torture.
 
The report calls on the international community to provide more funds, support and sufficient grants to local organizations concerned with the care and rehabilitation of torture victims and their families, and to provide support to individual activists and local organizations that document violations without imposing tutelage or political directives.
 
The report also stresses the need for international unity in implementing the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law, by establishing a special criminal court to hold the Syrian regime accountable for crimes against humanity and war crimes it has committed, and to take a clear, unanimous and repeated international consensus of not accepting that it continues to dominate the Syrian state.
 
The report calls on the OHCHR to make greater efforts to combat and condemn systematic torture in the Syrian regime’s detention centers, to issue periodic reports and repeated condemnation statements addressing this sensitive issue, and to repeat its requests that the Security Council refers the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court.
 
The report further recommends that Human Rights Council should allocate a special session to discuss the crimes of torture in the Syrian regime’s detention centers as it reached a level of ugliness never witnessed in modern times, should request that the Security Council and relevant international institutions assume their responsibilities in this very serious matter, and should put pressure on the Syrian government to stop torture, open prisons and detention centers to see the situation of thousands of detainees and conditions of their arrest.
 
Finally, the report calls on the Syrian regime to immediately stop using all torture methods and deploying the capabilities of the Syrian state in torture and in its reign of terror over Syrian society, to immediately allow access for the Independent International Commission of Inquiry, the International Committee of the Red Cross and all objective human rights organizations to detention centers, to take legal and historical responsibility for this comprehensive national catastrophe, to ensure the immediate and unconditional release of all those arbitrary detained, particularly children and women, and to stop violating the Syrian constitution and international law in a horrific and monstrous way, which grotesquely insults the Syrian constitution and the Syrian state.
 

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