Syria Crisis: Homs Hospital Video Allegedly Shows Torture

LONDON, March 5 (Reuters) - Secretly shot video footage aired on Monday by a British television station shows what it said were Syrian patients being tortured by medical staff at a state-run hospital in Homs.

The Syrian city has been the focus of an intensifying military crackdown on protests against the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The United Nations says more than 7,500 civilians have died in almost a year of political bloodshed in Syria.

Britain's Channel 4 said it had obtained footage of shocking scenes at the military hospital in Homs, filmed covertly by an employee and smuggled out by a French photojournalist identified only as "Mani".

"I have seen detainees being tortured by electrocution, whipping, beating with batons, and by breaking their legs. They twist the feet until the leg breaks," the employee who made the video told Mani.

WARNING: EXTREMELY DISTURBING FOOTAGE


"They operate without anaesthetics ... I saw them slamming detainees' heads against walls. They shackle the patients to beds. They deny them water. Others have their penises tied to stop them from urinating," the employee said.

The video, which Channel 4 said it could not independently verify, showed wounded, blindfolded men chained to beds. A rubber whip and electrical cable lay on a table in one of the wards. Some patients showed what looked like signs of having been severely beaten.

The hospital employee said some of the men were soldiers who refused to follow orders and others were civilians. The youngest was 14 years old, he said.

The Syrian military was conducting "clean-up" operations on Monday in Homs, where the Red Cross was seeking access to the former rebel stronghold of Baba Amr.

Opposition activists have accused Syrian forces of torture, killing civilians and other crimes but their reports are hard to verify because of government restrictions on independent media. (Reporting by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Michael Roddy)

WARNING: VIDEO CONTAINS DISTURBING IMAGES

Comments

[bloomd]

02:38 AM on 03/08/2012

All you that think this is shocking, WAKE UP. It happens here in the US.. I worked in the ED for over 20 years. There were very few shifts where at least on patient was not restrained. It could be for their protection, for the protection, or the police had them under arrest. Doesn't seem that different form Seria especially since this artical depicts a military hospital. They are taking care of what they percieve as the enemy similarry to our waterboarding techniques and the other forms of torture we used over the years. Since Seria is a dictatorship, I'm wondeering why these patients aren't just killed. No one would know till long after the regiem ended.

[sgrimes889]

08:22 PM on 03/07/2012

animals

[Stevepyong]

07:41 PM on 03/07/2012

Why is the liberal press pushing so hard to get the US involved in Syria? As for those that say the UN (read US) must step in need to think about that. "Occupy" could be seen as civil unrest and invites action from China (who now owns most of our debt) and Russia (remember Putin is old KGB and wants to go back 30 years). As for the atrocities, these are mild compared to those that happen in the Sudan against Christian natives (that's OK, Islamic fundamentalist are killing them). Nigerian overlords, Mozambique tribal obliteration, but these are okay. Makes me wonder.

[LuckyNicky789]

06:14 PM on 03/07/2012

where are the disturbing images?

[rikitiki123]

06:08 PM on 03/07/2012

I think the people that do this should in turn have these things done to them...Any eye for any eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a leg for a leg. Assad's own people should do what Libya's people did to Ghadafi.

[To Tall Jones]

05:18 PM on 03/07/2012

Welcome to the Hotel California! The world can only hope that Assad and the rest of his regime are brought to the Hague for murdering and torturing the people of Syria, that is if his own people don't hang him and his family in the streets of the Syrian capital first, like the people of Italy did to Mussolini and his wife at the ending WWII.

[rosasturtles1]

04:06 PM on 03/07/2012

very sad and disturbing.

[wallymundo]

01:41 PM on 03/07/2012

Welcome to Humanity, we are truely a unique species!!! I believe we are the only ones that do this to their own. Pretty Sad commentary for the Human race!!!

[Bob Macfarlane]

12:44 PM on 03/07/2012

Keep them UN vetos comin'. Thank you Russia and Communist China. Good work.

[specialkinwa]

08:46 PM on 03/07/2012

And with him as always is Garth

[teryflwr4u]

12:20 PM on 03/07/2012

It is so difficult to view these images of torture. We think because we are in the 21st Century thatt nothing as barbaric as these actions are still taking place in our world. We are very lucky to live in America. Yes, the country does have its share of problems, but nothing like this. We don't have to worry about our homes or markets being bombed on a daily basis. We should remember our good fortune.

[ginadeoliveira2008]

12:43 PM on 03/07/2012

You mean you already forgot Abu Graib?!

[Bob Macfarlane]

01:22 PM on 03/07/2012

Womens underware on their heads or do you mean during Saddam when they tied to box springs with electricity flowing through them or when Saddam dear sons would through men and women in wood chippers and stop the machine when the were half way through. The good looking women would not be thrown in prior to have been raped numerous times.

Is that the Abu Graib you are asking about?

[Bob Macfarlane]

01:24 PM on 03/07/2012

throw* + they* were half - - - senior moment

[Harley 2]

02:39 PM on 03/07/2012

Sorry, but your gov has made torture legal. detaining US citizens without charge, forever, legal.

You been under a rock?

[lynn foglesong]

12:14 PM on 03/07/2012

Muslim on Muslim crime? who cares!

[Bob Macfarlane]

12:45 PM on 03/07/2012

Anyone who is a human cares.

[lynn foglesong]

01:14 PM on 03/07/2012

when they start acting like then humans instead of animals!

[MInchau]

04:39 PM on 03/09/2012

You are disgusting.

[Rtistluv]

12:11 PM on 03/07/2012

This is propaganda, pure and simple. The video showed no torture, just men lying peacefully in their beds with their eyes covered so they can rest. Restraints were because they were enemies of the state. Their is absolutely no proof to what was written was going on. I saw no penises tied with rope, no surgery without anethesia, just men lying in beds sleeping. I have no sympathy for these muslim countries who spew hatred for the west and Israel. This is how these countries live. They suppress women and christians and jews. They have african slaves and female circumcize their women in most of these countries. Israel is the only country in the middle east that is civilized and they are only as big as New Jersey in size. This article was pure propaganda.

[Ken Blackwell]

01:16 PM on 03/07/2012

i agree

[Harley 2]

02:40 PM on 03/07/2012

agreed

[bonnie1946]

12:11 PM on 03/07/2012

Where is the UN in all of this? If no power to help, why does it continue to exist.
barbarians..no middle eastern country will EVER get a dime of my dollars, tourist or otherwise. Where are the supposedly "good" arabs/muslims to show some outrage over this? Conbtrol with fear...

[GH]

12:37 PM on 03/07/2012

UN? Are you kidding?

Where was the UN in Afghanistan, when the Soviet Imperialist Empire pulled out?

Where were they in Iraq - as Saddam cost the world perhaps some 2 million lives (I'm speaking of before the Iraq war)?

Where was the UN in the DR Congo - as Clinton was promising "never again," next door in Rwanda - the civil war and genocides were raging next door - by the time he left office, 3 million had died. Shh - it didn't really happen - you're not supposed to know that the most deadly single conflict since the end of WW II occurred during the warm wooly nice years of brother Bill. As did the horrors of the Ivory Coast and of Blood Diamonds. Not to mention the HIV/Aids pandemic which ballooned while the UN and Clinton turned their backs on that..

The UN - LOL

[Bob Macfarlane]

12:56 PM on 03/07/2012

Drive the left crazy. President Bush is loved all over Africa for his program to eliminate HIV/AIDS.

[ramonbatt]

12:10 PM on 03/07/2012

They call this news from Syria?