By Hugh Macleod and Annasofie Flamand, GlobalPost
For 13-year-old Hossam, the "ultimate pain" of his torture at the hands of the Syrian forces was when the "terrifying person" with the "huge body" wearing "black and black" drove a screwdriver up into his big toe nail before ripping it out with pliers.
"He was shouting at me, 'You want freedom? You want to topple the regime?' And he beat me. They asked me, 'What is your name? What is your father's name? Where are you from? Why did you join the protest?' He showed me a video and said 'Isn’t that you?' I said no and he beat me. 'Isn’t that you?' No. He beat me. 'Isn’t that you?' Yes. He beat me more."
In a regime whose systematic and widespread torture has shocked even hardened human rights researchers, Syrian children have been singled out for abuse, with hundreds reportedly tortured over the past year by the men fighting to keep President Bashar al-Assad and his family in power.
"The level of torture is not comparable to any other conflict I've worked on," said Anna Neistat, associate director for Program and Emergencies at Human Rights Watch, who has worked for more than a decade in crises from Chechnya to Zimbabwe to Sri Lanka.
"There are a disproportionate number of children trapped in this system. Children are tortured alongside adults and are even subject to more brutal torture as interrogators believe children could crack faster and give them names."
For the 13-year-old from Tal Kalakh, a town west of the flashpoint city of Homs, the nightmare began when security arrested him on his way home from school on the last day of exams.
Blindfolded and beaten by soldiers at a checkpoint, Hossam -- not his real name -- and his cousin of the same age were bundled into a car and taken to a military security office about 45 minutes away. This was in May last year, less than two months into the uprising.
"In the cell there was me and my cousin and about 50 other people. We were the only children," said Hossam, interviewed by GlobalPost in north Lebanon after he crossed the border with his family. "The cell was really small and smelled like sewage. There were bugs and rats in it. I was sleeping in the corner as everyone was packed in, like a zig zag."
Documenting a dozen cases of children detained and tortured, Human Rights Watch reported that prison cells of 5-by-6 meters (16-by-20 feet) often contain up to 70 people. After conducting hundreds of interviews with survivors of torture, Human Rights Watch said that up to one in five detainees were minors, under the age of 18.
Neistat said that tens of thousands of Syrians have been processed through the prison system since the uprising against the Assad dictatorship began last March. She said the vast majority of them have been subjected to degrees of torture.
Reacting to the screams of the men under interrogation, Hossam said he thought he would die under torture, just like Hamza al-Khateeb, the 13-year-old from Daraa whose death last May became a rallying cry for the opposition.
"I told them: 'I'm a kid, why are you beating me?' He said, 'You’re young? So why are you in a protest?' I told him: 'To express my opinion.' … They electrocuted me in my leg and in my chest. I passed out for about 15 minutes. Then I felt my soul come back to me and I thanked God I did not die."
Mohammed, a 16-year-old from Duma, one of the restive satellite towns outside Damascus, was also tortured with electricity after being arrested, he said, by members of Airforce Intelligence. He said he was picked up on Jan. 20 and held until early March.
"I was young, so the security men were not very hard with me. But I got my share of torture,” he told a GlobalPost reporter in Syria last week. "I was beaten and whipped with cable two or three times a day. One time I told the interrogator I wanted a country for all Syrians, not for one family. He reacted very badly and told some soldiers to electrocute me on my chest, hands, legs, neck and on my stomach, close to my penis."
Last month Navi Pillay, the UN human rights chief, told the BBC that Syrian forces had systematically targeted and tortured children and that Assad "could simply issue an order to stop the killings and the killings would stop."
Both Pillay and Neistat said the UN Security Council now has enough reliable information to refer Syrian leaders to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity.
But because Syria is not a party to the ICC, unless Damascus referred itself to the court, the only way to give the tribunal jurisdiction to act is through referral by the UN Security Council. But Russia and China have twice vetoed watered-down Security Council resolutions condemning the Assad's crackdown that made no mention of the ICC.
This month Amnesty International identified 31 methods of torture used by Syrian authorities. Some methods have been in use for decades, include the "tire," where the victim is forced into a large tire and beaten on the feet. There is also the "flying carpet," where the prisoner is strapped face-up on a wooden board that is bent to stretch the spine.
Less well known are apparently new and even more disturbing techniques, including pincers used to rip out flesh, anal rape with sharp objects and a form of crucifixion where the prisoner is hung from a wall by their wrists.
“The biggest lie of the regime is that there are no orders to torture,” a defected former member of Airforce Intelligence told GlobalPost. “It’s a program, a routine. I saw an old man with a 6-year-old girl brought to the interrogation department. Just five minutes of what she saw there, the screams she heard will surely traumatize her for the rest of her life.”
All rights reserved ©GlobalPost
Read more from the world news site GlobalPost.
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)
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. |
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.
The Associated Press obtained a video that purports to show the aftermath of an alleged massacre in the village of Tramseh, near Hama.
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.
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)
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.
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 |
| @ Reuters : UPDATE: DEATH TOLL IN SYRIAN FORCES' ATTACK ON VILLAGE IN SYRIA'S HAMA REGION IS MORE THAN 200, MOSTLY CIVILIANS - OPPOSITION ACTIVISTS |
|
| @ Reuters : At least 100 killed in Syrian village: opposition activists http://t.co/FG3fJwu8 |
Loading comments… 
Posted: 04/ 4/2012 10:25 am Updated: 04/ 4/2012 11:41 am