Great Britain’s Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, Alistair Burt said that those responsible for torture and killings of detainees in Syria must be held to account. The remarks came in response to the Assad regime’s recent issuance of thousands of death notices for thousands of detainees who died in its prisons.
“The issuing of thousands of prisoner death notices by the regime authorities provides another clear indication of the brutality the Assad regime has inflicted on the Syrian people,” Burt said in a press release on Thursday.
Burt added: “These notices do not bring an end to the issue. The regime must now clarify the situation of all those who remain missing, and release all those still arbitrarily detained, in accordance with UN Security Council Resolutions 2254 and 2268.”
“Moreover, the families of the deceased deserve justice. Those responsible for torture and killings must be held to account.”
Head of the Syrian National Commission on the Defense of Detainees, Yasser Farhan, said that the mass executions being carried out by the Assad regime against detainees, and the issuance of the death notices constituted war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
Farhan said that this is a deliberate, systematic policy being practiced by the regime against detainees in its prisons. He called on the United Nations to open an investigation into those violations and crimes which he described as “a disgrace to the world.” (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
