Security Forces Also Attacked Women and Girls in Raids on Homes
(New York) – Syrian government forces have used sexual violence to torture men, women, and boys detained during the current conflict. Witnesses and victims also told Human Rights Watch that soldiers and pro-government armed militias have sexually abused women and girls as young as 12 during home raids and military sweeps of residential areas.
Human Rights Watch interviewed 10 former detainees, including two women, who described being sexually abused or witnessing sexual abuse in detention, including rape, penetration with objects, sexual groping, prolonged forced nudity, and electroshock and beatings to genitalia.Many of the former detainees told Human Rights Watch that they were imprisoned because of their political activism, including for attending protests. In other cases, the reason for the detention was unclear but detainees suffered the same abusive tactics.
“Syrian security forces have used sexual violence to humiliate and degrade detainees with complete impunity,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The assaults are not limited to detention facilities – government forces and pro-government shabiha militia members have also sexually assaulted women and girls during home raids and residential sweeps.”
Human Rights Watch documented over 20 specific incidents of sexual assault, five of which involved more than one victim, that took place between March 2011 and March 2012 across Syria, including in Daraa, Homs, Idlib, Damascus, and Latakia governorates. The majority of cases were from Homs governorate. Interviewees described a range of sexual abuse by Syrian security forces, the army, and pro-government armed militias referred to locally as shabiha.
Human Rights Watch interviewed eight Syrian victims of sexual violence, including four women, and more than twenty-five other people with a knowledge of sexual abuse – former detainees, defectors from the Syrian security forces and the army, first responders and assistance providers, women’s rights activists, and family members.
The full extent of sexual violence in and outside of detention facilities remains unknown, Human Rights Watch said. The stigma in Syria surrounding sexual violence makes victims reluctant to report abuse. Survivors also may face dangers when they make crimes public, and researchers have had limited access to the country to document abuses. In many cases interviewees told Human Rights Watch that victims did not want their families or others in the community to know about the assault because of fear or shame. In one case, a female rape victim who was willing to be interviewed was not permitted by her husband to speak to Human Rights Watch.
Even when they may wish to seek help, Syrian survivors of sexual assault have limited access to medical or psychological treatment and other services in Syria. Survivors who have fled to neighboring countries also face obstacles in seeking treatment, including limited service options and inability to access services that are available because of social taboos surrounding sexual abuse, families restricting their movement, and the fear of being subjected to so-called “honor” crimes.
It is critical that survivors of sexual assault have access to emergency medical services, legal assistance, and social support to address injuries caused by the assault; prevent pregnancy, HIV, and other sexually transmitted infections; and to collect evidence to support prosecution of perpetrators, Human Rights Watch said. Human Rights Watch called on the Syrian government, countries hosting Syrian refugees, and donors to ensure that survivors have information about relevant health and psychosocial services, including that they should be accessed on an urgent basis, as well as facilitate victims’ access to them through safe and confidential mechanisms.
Human Rights Watch does not have evidence that high-ranking officers commanded their troops to commit sexual violence during home searches, ground operations, or in detention. However, information received by Human Rights Watch, including from army and security force defectors, indicates that no action has been taken to investigate or punish government forces and shabiha who commit acts of sexual violence or to prevent them from committing such acts in the future.
Many of the reported assaults were in circumstances in which commanding officers knew or should have known the crimes were taking place – for example, assaults committed on an apparently regular basis in detention centers under the full control of particular commanders.
Sexual Abuse in Detention
Detention facilities where male and female detainees have reported sexual torture include Military Intelligence Branch 248 and Branch 235 (known as “Palestine Branch”) in Damascus; the Military Intelligence facilities in Jisr al-Shughur, Idlib, and Homs; the Political Security branch in Latakia; the Air Force Intelligence branches in Mezze, Latakia, and Homs; and the Idlib Central Prison.
Salim (all names have been changed to protect the identities of the interviewees), a soldier who was detained in June 2011 while on leave at the Air Force Intelligence branch in Latakia, was questioned about his brother’s and father’s roles in demonstrations. He told Human Rights Watch:
They started torturing me here (gesturing toward his genitalia) [with the electricity]. They were also beating me and there was a guard behind me turning the electricity on. I passed out. They were beating me and shocking me. The interrogator was beating me with a cable over my whole body. I still didn’t have any clothes on … they asked me every thirty minutes if I would confess.
While a number of female detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that they were not sexually abused in detention, others reported that they were subjected to sexual abuse and other torture. One was Sabah, who was detained in the Military Intelligence facility in Jisr al-Shughur, Idlib in November 2011.
“They took my abaya off,” she said. “I was wearing jeans and a tee-shirt underneath, and a guard tied my hands behind my back ... He grabbed my breasts … I said, ‘Beat me, shoot me, but don’t put your hand on me.’ … He came to grab my breasts again and I pushed him ... Then he grabbed me by the chest and threw me against the wall. I fell and he started beating me with a stick. On the knee and on the ankle. My ankle was also broken [along with my hand]…”
At least two male former detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch also reported hearing women’s screams – in the Air Force Intelligence and Military Intelligence branches in Homs, and an ad hoc shabiha facility in Latakia. Human Rights Watch does not have further confirmation that women were actually held and sexually tortured in these facilities.
All former detainees who described sexual abuse said they had received no medical or psychological treatment in prison for the sexual abuse. Only one of the 10 former detainees interviewed about sexual abuse in detention said she received medical treatment after her release. All of the former detainees interviewed have left Syria.
Read the full report here.
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This is the norm is every Arab state, including the Arab Palestinian dictatorships Gaza and Palestinian Authority:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF5IfFkxObU
Arab use of horrific tactics is the norm. Assad, Saddam, Mubarak and the current regime, Gaddafi, the list goes on.
Torture
According to Amnesty International, methods of torture used by Israel on Palestinian prisoners include prolonged tying in painful stress positions, sleep deprivation and threats to harm detainees’ families. Beatings and other ill-treatment of detainees are common during and following arrest and during transfer from one location to another.
Human shields
The IDF used Palestinians as human shields, a practice susequently banned by Israel's High Court of Justice. Amnesty International[30] and Human Rights Watch[31] assert the Israel Defense Forces used Palestinian civilians as human shields during the 2002 Battle of Jenin. The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said that "for a long period of time following the outbreak of the second intifada, particularly during Operation Defensive Shield, in April 2002, the IDF systematically used Palestinian civilians as human shields, forcing them to carry out military actions which threatened their lives".The practice was outlawed by the Supreme Court of Israel in 2005 but human rights groups say the IDF continues to use it, although they say the number of instances has dropped sharply
Statistics prove you wrong. Just look at Syria.
"AFP - A group of expat Syrian businessmen announced in Qatar on Wednesday the creation of a $300 million (239 million euro) fund to support the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad.
Mustafa Sabbagh, chairman of the newly created Syrian Business Forum, said "the businessmen of Syria... offer their full and clear support to the revolution against (Assad's) dictatorial regime."
Businessman Khaled Khouja told a news conference the SBF would offer the rebel Free Syrian Army "medical equipment and technological materiel to facilitate its communications in Syria."
Neither Sabbagh nor Khouja elaborated on how the money would be raised and how much, if any, was already available.
However, Sabbagh said $150 million had already been given to the rebels, but he did not provide any details."
"A Jordanian member of the UN observer team in Syria says some of his teammates are carrying out spy missions by collecting information about Syria’s military headquarters."
U.S. State Department Policy Planning Study #23, 1948:
Our real task... is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity [U.S. military- economic supremacy]... To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming... We should cease to talk about vague and...unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization... we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better. George Kennan, Director of Policy Planning. U.S. State Department. 1948
"As part of the efforts, the Central Intelligence Agency and State Department—working with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and other allies—are helping the opposition Free Syrian Army develop logistical routes for moving supplies into Syria and providing communications training."
"Members of the armed opposition say the more sophisticated weapons are being transported across the border from Turkey with the knowledge of the Turkish intelligence service, an allegation Turkey has previously denied.
The improved supply of weapons to the rebels is clearly evident, both to reporters traveling in rebel-held area and in the rising death toll among Syrian security forces in clashes with the rebels. On Wednesday, the Syrian government announced the funerals of another 27 soldiers and police officers who died in clashes with the rebels, bringing to 322 the number of such deaths so far in June. "