Head of the National Commission on Detainees and Missing Persons Yasser Al-Farhan called on Germany and France to form an international pressure group along with Turkey and friendly countries to urgently head to the UN Security Council in order to demand that the Assad regime release all detainees in its prisons. Farhan stressed that the Assad regime must not be allowed to commit further crimes against detainees, adding that the regime is exploiting the inaction of the international community.
During a meeting with German and French envoys to Syria on Saturday, Farhan said that the Assad regime’s issuance of death notices for detainees who died in its prisons is proof of the war crimes and crimes against humanity. He stressed the need to head to the UN Security Council as was the case with Law No. 10 to ensure the remaining detainees.
Farhan said that the Assad regime unashamedly announcing its crimes as it changed the way of informing the families of the detainees about the death of their loved ones in its detention centers. The regime has been recently instructing civil registry departments to registry thousands of detainees as dead. Farhan stressed the need to alert the United Nations to this dangerous development and urgently intervene to save the remaining detainees and hold war criminals accountable.
Moreover, Farhan stressed the need to force the Assad regime to give international organizations and observers, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, access to its detention facilities in order to ascertain the situation inside and the way detainees are being treated.
“Before they were detained, those detainees gave flowers and water bottles to regime forces who responded by attacking them during the peaceful demonstrations they used to hold. The murderous Assad regime kidnapped, forcibly disappeared, tortured, and executed peaceful demonstrators. It also refused to hand over the bodies to their families or conduct serious, transparent investigation into their deaths.”
Farhan went on to say that the Assad regime converted Syria into a large mourning place brining Syrians together through pain and loss. This has strengthened the Syrians’ determination to get rid of the Assad regime and its murder, kidnapping, and torture of its opponents.” (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
