Syria: Political Prisoners And Torture

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Syria: political prisoners and torture Feb 10, 2010
Syrian Former Political Prisoners Demand in Beirut to Halt Torture in Syrian Prisons

- Syrian former political prisoners called on the United Nations on Thursday to uncover the fate of thousands of Arabs who have gone missing in Syria and are believed to have been jailed without charge.

"We call for the formation of a committee to investigate the Syrian regime's persistent violation of human rights and the enforced disappearance of thousands of Lebanese, Syrians, Palestinians and Jordanians at the hands of the regime," Syrian dissident Mamoun Homsi told a Beirut news conference.

A former member of parliament, Homsi was sentenced to five years in prison in 2001 for "attempting to overthrow the regime" and now lives in Lebanon with his family.

He and other members of the Beirut-based Committee of Torture Victims in the Prisons of the Syrian Regime also displayed torture methods they said are used in Syrian prisons, including a chair frame, whips and electric cables.

"We are trying to get the message out to the world, that the human rights situation in Syria is deteriorating," Homsi told AFP.

"There are 1,000 intelligence branches in Syria that use methods of torture on people who did nothing but express their opinion or demand basic rights," he said.

New York-based Human Rights Watch released what it said was a partial list on Thursday of detainees in one of Syria's largest prisons, at Saydnaya just north of the capital Damascus, whose families have been unable to obtain word of their whereabouts for 18 months.

The watchdog said it had documented the torture of inmates in the prison.

Flying Dutchman
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Re: Syria: political prisoners and torture Feb 11, 2010
2009-12-11


Old article is old.
event horizon
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Re: Syria: political prisoners and torture Feb 11, 2010
Excellent - more should be done to highlight the abuses going on in the region. Israel is certainly not alone is violating human rights.

Turkey, Iraq and indeed Iran are also accused of these violations as well - and all should indeed be highlighted. We should certainly denounce any measly-worded excuses anyone comes up with to try and condone these actions - eg 'it's ok if we do it, because Israel also abuses prisoners'. ;)

Cheers,
Shafique
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Re: Syria: political prisoners and torture Feb 12, 2010
Didn't the Soviet Union arm and finance the Syrian government?
event horizon
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Re: Syria: political prisoners and torture Feb 13, 2010
event horizon wrote:Didn't the Soviet Union arm and finance the Syrian government?


Dont 4get USA government does it as well. Look at how they financed Iraq so Iraq could fight Iran. Then ofcourse we all know about how they financed the likes of Osama Bin Ladin and the Taliban when Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.
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Re: Syria: political prisoners and torture Feb 13, 2010
Didn't know the Taliban were around when the Soviets entered Afghanistan. Perhaps you can ask shafique for a source on that one?

And I already checked up on the claim that the US trained Osama bin Laden - in short, there's no evidence to it and it's most likely a myth whipped up by the usual ilk and perpetuated on the internet just like the 9/11 truth movement and Koranic miracle weirdos.

As for Soviet aid to Syria, I think it speaks volumes that not a single person who complained (in the eighties, seventies and sixties) about American aid to Israel ever so much as offered a tiny bit of condemnation to military aid to a country with such discriminatory and blatantly racist laws as the Syrian government (not to mention a regime that massacred ten thousand people in a few days). But hey, why let consistency get in the way of tunnel vision?
event horizon
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Re: Syria: political prisoners and torture Feb 13, 2010
It appears there's quite a lot the young man either doesn't know or is in denial about! I particularly like the 'not a single person' complained comment. I didn't know he'd be such a good laugh! (Presumably he will come up with the argument, well no one has posted any comment to show that 40 years ago people raised objections - so therefore no one objected. :mrgreen: )

It's fascinating to trace back the roots of todays 'evil' groups. For example Hamas was set up with the help of the Israelis to counter the secular PLO back when they were the personalisation of evil, rather than today when they are the 'moderate voice of Palestinians' ;)

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Shafique
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