The head of the National Commission on the Affairs of Detainees and Missing Persons and member of the Syrian Coalition’s political committee, Yasser Al-Farhan said that the Washington Post’s talk about the Assad regime’s acceleration of executions of detainees in its prisons confirmed the warnings issued to the international community of the Assad regime’s continued brutal crackdown on opponents of its policies.
Al-Farhan said that the Assad regime does not hesitate to commit crimes under all circumstances as he warned that the regime will double down its crackdown on its opponents should it regain full military control on the country.
The Assad regime will not hesitate to commit the most heinous crimes against the Syrian people as it has already killed more than 964 people under torture in its prisons since the beginning of 2018 alone, according to preliminary figures by human rights organizations, Al-Farhan added.
The Washington Post on Monday published a report indicating that the Assad regime is doubling down on executions of political prisoners. It said that cells that were teeming with detainees have become empty because of the unyielding executions following the regime’s recapture of some Syrian provinces.
Even before they reach the gallows, many prisoners die of malnutrition, medical neglect or physical abuse, often after a psychological breakdown, the Washington Post quoted a former detainee as saying.
The Washington Post said that the Assad regime did not respond to its requests to comment on the matter. The Assad regime has never admitted the execution of detainees, nor did it issue figures of the number of executions. There are no independent sources for the numbers of executions.
Satellite imagery of the Sednaya prison grounds taken in March shows an accumulation of dozens of dark objects that experts said were consistent with human bodies.
Other satellite imagery of military land near Damascus, previously identified by Amnesty International as a location of mass graves, appears to show an increase in the number of burial pits and headstones in at least one cemetery there since the start of the year, the Washington Post added. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
