In collaboration with the Syrian Association for the Missing and Prisoners of Conscience, the Syrian Coalition’s office in Brussels will organize The Caesar Photo Exhibit in The Hague today to showcase photographs documenting the crimes committed by the Assad regime against Syrian detainees.
The photo exhibit comes on the sidelines of the 14th session of the Assembly of States Parties in the International Criminal Court, which began earlier today and will last for three days.
The photo exhibit showcases photos showing detainees being severely tortured, sometimes to death. The photos were leaked by the defected military photographer codenamed Caesar, who in 2013 managed to smuggle 55,000 photos of 11,000 detainees killed under torture in Assad’s prisons.
In July 2014, a year long analysis by the FBI concluded that the 55,000 photographs are authentic, providing powerful new evidence to support charges of the Assad regime’s extensive human rights violations.
It is worth noting that these photos previously went on display at the United Nations in New York, in the US Congress, the Holocaust Museum in Washington, at the European Parliament in Brussels, and the British parliament.
On Monday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon renewed calls that the situation in Syria be referred to the International Criminal Court in the 21st report he submitted to the UN Security Council on the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions 2139 (2014), 2165 (2014) and 2191 (2014).
Ki-moon said that “in its resolution 2139 (2014), the Security Council also called upon the parties to lift the sieges of populated areas. This call has not been heard. I must again urge the parties, and in particular the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic, to honor their obligations under international humanitarian law and to act now. (Source: Syrian Coalition)