Syria Opposition Torture And Execute Prisoners, Says Human Rights Watch

By Oliver Holmes

BEIRUT, March 20 (Reuters) - Armed opposition groups in Syria have kidnapped, tortured and executed members of the security forces and supporters of President Bashar al-Assad, the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.

The rights group condemned the tactics by opposition fighters, who have long accused government troops and loyalists of carrying out similar abuses.

"The Syrian government's brutal tactics cannot justify abuses by armed opposition groups," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, in an open letter to dissident groups including the official opposition body the Syrian National Council (SNC).

"Opposition leaders should make it clear to their followers that they must not torture, kidnap or execute under any circumstances," she added.

Syria's armed opposition is highly fragmented and many militias do not appear to belong to an organised command structure or to be following SNC orders.

The year-long uprising in Syria, in which the United Nations says more than 8,000 people have been killed, started as a peaceful protest movement. But it has become increasingly violent with daily clashes between rebels and security forces around the country.


SECTARIAN TENSIONS

HRW cited dozens of YouTube videos in which Syrian security forces or their alleged supporters confessed to crimes, apparently under duress. At least 18 of the videos showed detainees who were bruised, bleeding, or suffering from other signs of physical abuse, the groups added.

One video showed a man hanging from a tree by his neck in front of several armed fighters with commentary indicating that he was a member of the Shabbiha, feared irregular forces loyal to Assad.

HRW said some of the attacks appeared to have targeted Shi'ite Muslims or members of Assad's own Alawite sect.

Analysts warn the uprising could degenerate into civil war, pitting Alawites against Sunni Muslims, who make up 75 percent of the 23-million population.

That it turn would add to strains along the Middle East's sectarian divide, with Assad's backer Iran, and Tehran's Shi'ite allies in Lebanon and Iraq, against the Sunni powers which dominate Arab governments from Egypt to the Gulf.

HRW's Whitson said: "(The Syrian Opposition) need to make it clear that they envision a Syria that turns the page on Assad-era violations and welcomes all - regardless of their religious group or background - without discrimination."

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Car Bomb In Damascus

Syrian policemen inspect the site of a car bomb explosion on Mazzeh highway in the capital Damascus on July 13, 2012. AFP PHOTO/STR (Photo credit should read -/AFP/GettyImages)

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Susan Rice Condemns Killings

U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice tweets:

@ AmbassadorRice : #Syria regime turned artillery, tanks and helicopters on its own men & women. It unleashed knife-wielding shabiha gangs on its own children.

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Russia Condemns Massacre

Russia says international envoy Kofi Annan will visit Moscow on Monday to discuss the ongoing crisis in Syria. Russia also called for an inquiry into an alleged massacre that took place in the village of Tramseh on Thursday. "We have no doubt that this wrongdoing serves the interests of those powers that are not seeking peace but persistently seek to sow the seeds of interconfessional and civilian conflict on Syrian soil," Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement, according to Reuters. Moscow did not apportion blame for the killings.

Read more on Reuters.com.

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Footage Of Massacre Aftermath (WARNING: VIDEO CONTAINS DISTURBING IMAGES)

The Associated Press obtained a video that purports to show the aftermath of an alleged massacre in the village of Tramseh, near Hama.

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How Do Syrian Fighters Get Their Arms?

How do Syria's fighters get their arms? An overview put together by Reuters explains that there are three gateways to the country -- Lebanon, Turkey, and Iraq.

Syrian rebels are smuggling small arms into Syria through a network of land and sea routes involving cargo ships and trucks moving through Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq, maritime intelligence and Free Syrian Army (FSA) officers say.

Western and regional powers deny any suggestion they are involved in gun running. Their interest in the sensitive border region lies rather in screening to ensure powerful weapons such as surface to air missiles do not find their way to Islamist or other militants.

Read the full report here.

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Activists Report New Massacre (WARNING: GRAPHIC PHOTOS)

This citizen journalism image made from video provided by Shaam News Network SNN, purports to show a victim wounded by violence that, according to anti-regime activists, was carried out by government forces in Tremseh, Syria about 15 kilometers (nine miles) northwest of the central city of Hama, Thursday, July 12, 2012. The accounts, some of which claim more than 200 people were killed in the violence Thursday, could not be independently confirmed, but would mark the latest in a string of brutal offensives by Syrian forces attempting to crush the rebellion. (AP Photo/Shaam News Network, SNN)

This citizen journalism image made from video provided by Shaam News Network SNN, purports to show a man mourning a victim killed by violence that, according to anti-regime activists, was carried out by government forces in Tremseh, Syria about 15 kilometers (nine miles) northwest of the central city of Hama, Thursday, July 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Shaam News Network, SNN)

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Hama Revolutionary Council: More Than 220 Killed

According to the Hama Revolutionary Council, a Syrian opposition group, more than 220 people have been killed in a new alleged massacre in Taramseh. Earlier reports said more than 100 people were killed. "More than 220 people fell today in Taramseh," the Council said in a statement. "They died from bombardment by tanks and helicopters, artillery shelling and summary executions."

Fadi Sameh, an opposition activist from Taramseh, told Reuters he had left the town before the reported massacre but was in touch with residents. "It appears that Alawite militiamen from surrounding villages descended on Taramseh after its rebel defenders pulled out, and started killing the people. Whole houses have been destroyed and burned from the shelling," Sameh claimed.

Read more on Reuters.com.

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Syrian State TV: 'Large Numbers Of Terrorists Killed'

Syrian activist Rami Jarrah tweets that Syrian State TV has confirmed deaths in Tremseh. "Terrorists" is often the term used by the Syrian regime for opposition forces.

@ AlexanderPageSY : Syrian State TV: clashes between security apparatus & terrorists in #Tremseh of #Hama leaves large numbers of terrorists killed #Syria

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Update: Death Toll In New Massacre Reportedly More Than 200

@ Reuters : UPDATE: DEATH TOLL IN SYRIAN FORCES' ATTACK ON VILLAGE IN SYRIA'S HAMA REGION IS MORE THAN 200, MOSTLY CIVILIANS - OPPOSITION ACTIVISTS

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Reports Of New Massacre In Hama

@ Reuters : At least 100 killed in Syrian village: opposition activists http://t.co/FG3fJwu8

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Comments

[Dare Taiwo]

08:42 AM on 03/27/2012

Those are the same People Mrs Hilary Clinton, British FM William Hague and French FM Alain Juppe called peaceful demonstrators.

Their hatred for Assad has hitherto blinded them to the atrocities of these so called peaceful opposition.

The question I keep asking is: will the West ever learn?

See what they have made of Libya. That once peaceful Country under Gaddafi has been turned into war zones by ethnic Militians who were armed by the West. See how they are now turning the gun on themselves.

Yesterday alone, 20 people were killed in Sabha. It's appaling that no Western News Media carries the daily recurrent carnage in Libya.

How will they report? Weren't they the same People that were sending misinformation out to their People to justify their Governments involvement in Libya.

I cringe when I hear People like Sen John McCain advising that Syrian opposition should be armed with American tax payers money. Wouldn't that have made everyone culpable of the tortures and killing?

[Ed Baker]

12:51 PM on 03/21/2012

All the more reason for us to stay out of it.

[Progressneeded]

12:20 PM on 03/21/2012

The scary thing about the Middle East is that years of dictatorships and militarization has left the people with a lot of anger which they have no problem taking out on each other. Libya, Egypt, Iraq. If it is not the government perpetuating abuses, it is the opposition!

[KIVPossum]

02:17 AM on 03/21/2012

Should not surprise anyone. Same happened with the beautiful rebels we supported in Libya.

[twoangels]

02:24 PM on 03/21/2012

And remember how proud was Hillary rotten Clintstone

[KIVPossum]

01:02 AM on 03/22/2012

Never ceases to amaze me what passes muster on a moderated thread

[Bradley Greig Smith]

10:24 PM on 03/20/2012

Tribal nations are very hard for the West to control. They generally don't have a strong central government. They have the military and the political end. However, for the most part they stay out of tribal business, even if they have a conflict. (think Hatfields and McCoy's) At most they will call on a meeting of the elders from the tribes to talk it out.

We really don't like this system in the West. So when we say we are bringing democracy that really isn't true. What we are trying to do is to destroy the tribal way of life by pitting them against each other and then having them form a single national government that controls all of it's people. That way, as long as we can control their government or at least influence or bribe it we can control the people. In a tribal system we can control their government and still not control their people.

[John-boy]

07:21 PM on 03/30/2012

You have it exactly opposite to the truth.

Syria has a strong central government with an anti-imperial pan-Arab nationalist ideology that is emphatically anti-sectarian, anti-tribal and secular. The West is supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in a sectarian rebellion and civil war, hoping that it will weaken and divide Syria. It is an old, old strategy. "Divide and rule" (along with Churchill's other infamous phrase "empire on the cheap") has been the key element in America's imperialistic policy towards the Arabs ever since it inherited that element and that imperial role from Britain and France.

These Arab disasters have been a long time in the making, and it's about time that the Western public recognized the fact that they are the logical results of 90 years of malicious foreign policies.

[John-boy]

09:23 PM on 03/30/2012

Syria's reality is the exact opposite of what you've written, Bradley.

Syria already has a strong central government, as did Iraq and Libya before.The ideology of the ruling Ba'th Party is secular pan-Arab nationalism. It is emphatically anti-tribal and anti-sectarian

Western imperial policy toward the Arab countries has always been based on the principle of 'Divide and Rule'. This has been continuous since the early 1920s when Britain and France betrayed their promises of immediate independence and unity of all the Arab territory, and was picked-up with a vengeance by the US during the Cold War. It continues to this day under the smokescreen of the "Arab Spring".. One of the major tactics of the divide and rule strategy is to incite sectarian tensions with the aim of creating division. It has happened time and again, and the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood has long been a faithful ally of the US's secret efforts to topple Syria's secular government - it still is.

[Bradley Greig Smith]

06:32 AM on 03/31/2012

I spent enough time there to know. They still have local tribal governance with a central government that stays out of their way unless threatened. You are right on everything else. Even when we impose a dictator, think of Saddam or the Shah, they (the West) are simply not in control. When you think of tribes try and think of them as extended families, that is how they think. If they meet someone they will ask what is their tribe. It's something that unites them in a way the rest of us simply don't have. They pick sides in a fight based on tribal identity not anything else. I don't think our government really understood this until after Reagan in Lebanon. I am not sure many of them understand it now.

Think of the Pashtun in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 1.3 million members of one large family. They can't be ruled and it ticks us off. Kill just one of them and you are looking at a fight with all of them.

[yaskan]

08:06 PM on 03/20/2012

Are you really surprised by this report?
Do you think any opposition is an angle?
Most people in the opposition have lost someone in their family during this uprising,how do you think will deal with the killer of their family?
Not to excuse them,but,they are Human Being with rage,anger,and even vengence.

[OSABB]

03:38 AM on 03/21/2012

You are in fact "excusing" them....You dont turn from a freedom-loving, tolerant democrat to a sectarian, torturing, hate filled killer overnight..these kind of values are nurtured over a long period of time and are influenced by who and what has shaped your worldview, your values, etc (prob taught these from parents, from saudi-funded religious leaders, from the frightening secterian atmosphere that has dominated the middle east airwaves and coversation for the last decade)...this goes agaisnt the narrative being peddled by the west about the nature of this conflict, and doesnt even represent a fraction of what really lurkes beneath...
Again my advice...becareful what you support, and stay out of what you dont understand

[yaskan]

07:32 AM on 03/21/2012

Actually,I do understand the HUMAN NATURE,even with all values,and morals,sometimes unfortunately,we are blinded by oyr RAGE,when we lose our family to a MASSACRE.
In syria there were many of those masscre that were comitted by brutal Assad regime for more than 40 years.
Get real.!!! and stop the BS.

[twoangels]

02:26 PM on 03/21/2012

You guys are all forgetting that Islam is a religion of peace.

[Volkan Koknar]

07:01 PM on 03/20/2012

When i told there's no innocence on that area people showed reaction to me. This opposition is not needing democracy. This conflict between different sects. Shia muslims which has %20 of the population of Syria built dictatorship out there. And sunni sect which has %80 of the population doesn't want tolive under dictatorship of shias.

This opposition is fighting for changing dictatorship. When Assad will gone sunni muslims will find a sunni dictatorand start supressing torturing to shia muslims. And justactors willbe changed.

Look at Libya. Oppositions inLibya were telling to world that Kaddafi tortured people. And the first thing theydid was torturing Kaddafi and kill him as soonas they found him. They also killed and tortured supportersof Kaddafi.

Americans support sunni opposition and wantto see Assad gone because ofhis connection with iran. Russians supports Iran and Syria notto leave all middle east energy sources to Americans.
And some sold western media show it like a human right issue.

Americans want human right to the people who is living western life. When their soldier kills nonwestern children and women some americans can ignore human rights. Or some americans can say kill all muslims when the complain about WTC attacks.
This oppositions blame Assad as he gone out of human rights. But as soon as they take the authorithy in a city they make same to the supporters of Assad.
I GUESS WE CONSIDER HUMAN BEING IS ONLY SOMONE SIMILAR TO US. THE REST AREN'T HUMAN AND NOT DESERVING RIGHTS...

[Bernique]

09:29 PM on 03/20/2012

President Assad's tribe is Alawite. How does that fit into your theory, Volkan?

[Bradley Greig Smith]

10:13 PM on 03/20/2012

The Alawite are an offshoot of Shia. Although a fairly strange one. They don't generally attend mosques, they believe in the trinity and have communion as well as celebrate Christmas. They have Allah as God, either the sun or moon as the go between (kinda like the holy spirit) and then Ali as Allah but in a body. They believe in reincarnation as well. They were horribly persecuted over the centuries for not being Sunni.

He is 100% that if the Assad Regime falls they will be persecuted again.

[Volkan Koknar]

10:48 PM on 03/20/2012

As Mr Smith wrote Alewite is a sub sect under shia. This conflict is here for thousand year. I'm from Turkey. Alewite is more likely natural Turkic sect. Even i'm not religious i am coming from sunni muslim family and i know the differences and conflicts.

Both sides are same violent. They are brothers. They are having same democratic or nondemocratic cultures. Their only difference is sect. Who will have the authorithy will try to clear the otherside.

It happened in Ottoman times to. Ottomans were sunni and they slaughtered the Alewite Turks because they were slaughtering sunni Turks with the provocation and support of iranians.

This oppositions can't bring human rights or democracy to Syria. It will just change the sides who torture and whom been tortured.

[twoangels]

02:30 PM on 03/21/2012

As far as Libya, Egypt, Iraq and all those countries in that neighborhood, read George Orwell ANIMAL FARM

[Volkan Koknar]

03:08 PM on 03/21/2012

sure...
'all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others'

[racebaiter]

06:11 PM on 03/20/2012

Who would have thought? This gives me pause to think about how many "innocents" will be killed when the rebels? terrorists? whatever take over.

[Rexter]

04:29 PM on 03/20/2012

The sunni majority killing off the shiite minority, a minority that happens to be the ruling class in Syria. This is the same old tune being played throughout the mideast. They should rename the Arab Spring movement with a name that is more appropriate. The sunni-shiite religious war. There's no politics involved it is just pure hate fueled by sect differences. Even those funding the madness and bloodshed, Saudi Arabia backs the sunni and Iran the Shia's, are driven to have their sects in leadership roles in any muslim country. That's really the only political slant to it. It's just bloodlust, muslim against muslim. And we're supposed to get involved and referee? Wasn't Iraq indication enough how futile and costly that strategy is/was.

Leave well enough alone decimation will take care of the imbalance.

[Wairimu]

02:53 PM on 03/20/2012

Unfortunately, this sounds a lot like Libya 2.0. Assad and Gaddafi are/were bad, but it seems like the replacement will be no different. A testament to what decades of repression will do..... ugh!

[intellifran]

02:08 PM on 03/20/2012

This is only shocking to people who have not spent time in the middle east. These people grow up learning about torture and that is all they know. That is how these governments obtain so many "confessions."

[BrokenCrown]

02:01 PM on 03/20/2012

Uh... Last time I checked, US was supplying the opposition with weapons.. Doesn't this sound familiar? *Cough Afghanistan! *Cough What a great way for America to get involved to position themselves for an attack on Iran. Very well executed. This whole situation is just a game to feed Israel's fat obnoxious child's hunger for power.

[racebaiter]

06:08 PM on 03/20/2012

Paving the way for Marshall Law??

[Bernique]

09:31 PM on 03/20/2012

Damm, a Marshall Plan* [look it up] for the whole region is what's needed.

[twoangels]

02:32 PM on 03/21/2012

Vote for Ron Paul and we will stay out of it

[BrokenCrown]

04:55 PM on 03/21/2012

Ron paul doesnt stand a chance thanks to the ignorant majority of republican america.. They would rather have an evil christian extremist to tie politics with religion just like al qaeda and the taliban or a corporate money junky that doesnt care for middle or lower class people.

[pattyj]

08:39 PM on 03/21/2012

TWOANGELS--this has nothing to do with Ron Paul...it's about the TSA search..You are correct. Just like the bombing in Oklahoma and guess what, "It wasn't a terrorist." He was an American. That's why I say, TSA, search kids, old & young ladies, young girls & boys, and, men. I don't want to die, if I don't have to . & they are there to make sure I don't. As for President Barack H. Obama, He is not trying to take your freedom. you are so stupid. another hater spreading lies. people like you, always has to blame everything on President Obama, but, didn't 9/11 happen under Pres. GW Bush watch?? Where was he? If that had been into place then, look at all the people that would be alive today. Also, Bush knew an attack on this country was going to happen, &, he protected his family and himself. NOT A WARNING TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Tell me why?? 9/11 HAPPENED UNDER BUSH WATCH. NOT PRESIDENT OBAMA..measures are taken to stop future attacks, and, you call it, taking your freedom...JERK WITH NO BRAINS

[banderson2]

12:23 PM on 03/20/2012

And the world wonders why Assad is not going to just turn the country over to these people. These are the bodies that the opposition keeps talking about that they just so happen to be around to videotape. This is also what is going on in Libya but apparently since Gaddafi was overthrown, the media doesn't care.

[racebaiter]

06:15 PM on 03/20/2012

F and F'd. lotta rapin' goin on in Libia right now. Egypt too. Mostly unreported. No I can't prove it but it's happening.

[omobob]

11:55 AM on 03/20/2012

After the report of the US torturing prisoners we have no moral high guard from which top preach anymore.

[Bradley Greig Smith]

10:15 PM on 03/20/2012

Heck these are the people we are arming via Saudi Arabia. So we obviously don't have too big of a problem with it.

[myopinion2]

11:40 AM on 03/20/2012

It's the old rock and hard place, witgh the people screwed in the middle.