Syrien "Folter und Verhaftung in industriell betriebenem Ausmaß"
Wer es wissen will, kann es seit Jahren wissen, was in Syrien los ist und trotzdem sollte man diesen Bericht aus der New York Times ganz lesen, besonders in diesen Tagen, in denen in der Provinz Idlin hunderttausende Zivilisten vor den Angriffen der syrischen Armee und ihrer Verbündeten fliehen, auch wenn es keinen Ort gibt, an den sie mehr fliehen können und gerade 18 große Hilfsorganisationen erklärt haben, ihre Arbeit dort einstellen zu müssen.
As Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, closes in on victory over an eight-year revolt, a secret, industrial-scale system of arbitrary arrests and torture prisons has been pivotal to his success. While the Syrian military, backed by Russia and Iran, fought armed rebels for territory, the government waged a ruthless war on civilians, throwing hundreds of thousands into filthy dungeons where thousands were tortured and killed.
Nearly 128,000 have never emerged, and are presumed to be either dead or still in custody, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, an independent monitoring group that keeps the most rigorous tally. Nearly 14,000 were “killed under torture.” Many prisoners die from conditions so dire that a United Nations investigation labeled the process “extermination.”
Now, even as the war winds down, the world’s attention fades and countries start to normalize relations with Syria, the pace of new arrests, torture and execution is increasing. The numbers peaked in the conflict’s bloodiest early years, but last year the Syrian Network recorded 5,607 new arrests that it classifies as arbitrary — more than 100 per week and nearly 25 percent more than the year before.
Detainees have recently smuggled out warnings that hundreds are being sent to an execution site, Saydnaya Prison, and newly released prisoners report that killings there are accelerating.