Assad Regime Executes 131 Detainees Infected With Pneumonic Plague

Nasr al-Hariri, Secretary General of the Syrian Coalition, calls on the international community and human rights organizations to “put an end to the grave violations and crimes committed by the Assad regime against detainees, and to impose urgent health control over detention centers. Informed sources from inside the 215th security branch said that security forces executed 131 detainees infected with pneumonic plague, a crime that Hariri described as “a heinous massacre that cannot be tolerated.” He stresses that the international community’s failure to take urgent steps to hold Assad and his security forces accountable for these systematic crimes is an indirect participation in these crimes. This horrific massacre brings to mind the massacre committed against 11,000 detainees who died under torture in Assad’s secret prisons and which was confirmed by the 55,000 photos leaked by a former military photographer. The ‏‎Syrian Commission for Transitional Justice‎‏ has released a report in cooperation with the Syrian Coalition to highlight the crimes of enforced disappearance towards the Syrian people. Ammar Tabbab, director of the Syrian Commission for Transitional Justice and director of the file of enforced disappearances, said that “the commission recorded more than 60,000 cases of forced disappearances in Syria, among them 6,722 people who were liquidated including, 1348 children and 1511 women. He also said that “while Syria is not the first country where forced disappearance is recorded, it is the only country where an entire community has been forcibly disappeared,” citing the regime forces’ closing off of whole areas near Wadi al-Daif army base in Idlib province. Survivors who managed to flee those areas were not given the chance to know the fate of their beloved ones. Examples of cases of enforced disappearances have been corroborated by the 55,000 photos leaked by Caesar, which leaves no room for doubt about the regime’s responsibility. However, the world chose to remain silent for political reasons with a complete disregard for human lives. In contrast, the international community lost no time to declare war on ISIS, which shows its double standards as it condoned the original criminal and chose to counter ISIS whose crimes are only an extension and reflection of those of the Assad regime. Ironically, the international community and the Assad regime are trying to find an excuse through an enforced disappearance to extend the scope of the implementation of the UN resolution to Syria, namely the case of the American journalist James Foley, who was executed by ISIS after he went missing in the end of 2012, even before ISIS began to exist. The world’s silence over the photos of 11,000 detainees, leaked by Caesar, proves that in our world the decision to apply justice is determined by the victim’s nationality, as the 11,000 Syrian detainees were not a match to one U.S. national.” (Source: Syrian Coalition)