Crisis in Syrië #9 Bloedbad?

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Op zondag 19 februari 2012 11:03 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
Heeft iemand een idee wat er met die 1000-en (12.000?) gearresteerden is gebeurd?

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Op woensdag 15 februari 2012 02:59 schreef Stephen_Dedalus het volgende:
We moeten geen kant kiezen. Laat de beesten elkaar maar afmaken. Interventie heeft ons in Libië geen goed gedaan. Waarom hier wel?

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2 western journalists killed in Homs
Washington (CNN) -- Two Western journalists were killed Wednesday in the Syrian city of Homs, opposition activists told CNN.

The journalists were killed by shelling from government forces in the Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs, the activists said.

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Op woensdag 22 februari 2012 11:11 schreef Frutsel het volgende:
Breaking:

[..]

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Syria: Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin 'killed in Homs'

Marie Colvin, a Sunday Times journalist, and a French photographer have reportedly been killed in the besieged Syrian city of Homs after the house where they were staying was shelled.

Colvin, an American reporter for the British newspaper, and photographer Remi Ochlik both died in the attack, opposition activists and witnesses said.

Shells hit the house in which the two veteran war correspondents were staying, then they were killed by a rocket as they tried to make their escape, Reuters reported.

Colvin, known for wearing a black eye patch after she lost an eye due to a shrapnel wound while working in Sri Lanka in 2001, was the only journalist from a British newspaper in Homs.

At least two other Western journalists were wounded after more than 10 rockets hit the house, it is understood.

Only yesterday, Colvin reported on shelling in the city in a video for the BBC, as well as CNN, in which she described the bloodshed as “absolutely sickening”.
“I watched a little baby die today,” she said. “Absolutely horrific.

“There is just shells, rockets and tank fire pouring into civilian areas of this city and it is just unrelenting.”

In a report published in the Sunday Times over the weekend, Colvin spoke of the citizens of Homs "waiting for a massacre".

"The scale of human tragedy in the city is immense. The inhabitants are living in terror. Almost every family seems to have suffered the death or injury of a loved one," she wrote.

In 2010, Colvin spoke about the dangers of reporting on war zones at a Fleet Street ceremony honouring fallen journalists.

She said: "Craters. Burned houses. Mutilated bodies. Women weeping for children and husbands. Men for their wives, mothers, children

"Our mission is to report these horrors of war with accuracy and without prejudice.

"We always have to ask ourselves whether the level of risk is worth the story. What is bravery, and what is bravado?

"Journalists covering combat shoulder great responsibilities and face difficult choices. Sometimes they pay the ultimate price."

Ochlik was born in France in 1983 and first covered conflict in Haiti at the age of 20. Most recently he photographed the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

The two were killed when a shell crashed into a makeshift media centre set up by anti-regime activists in Baba Amr district, activist Omar Shaker told the AFP news agency.

He told Reuters that two other journalists were injured - British photographer Paul Conroy, and a female American journalist, who he said was in a very serious condition.

"Up to this point we have two dead. They are still under the rubble because the shelling hasn't stopped. No one can get close to the house.

"There is another American female journalist who is in a really serious condition, she really needs urgent care."

Pro-opposition areas of Homs have been under a sustained bombardment from government forces since February 3, leaving several hundred people dead.

Last week New York Times reporter Anthony Shadid died of an asthma attack while trying to reach an opposition zone.

French television reporter Gilles Jacquier was killed in Homs last month as a shell exploded amid a group of journalists covering protests in the city on a visit organised by the Syrian authorities.

Violence meanwhile continues to spread across Syria. Several YouTube videos taken by local activists in Idlib, which could not be independently confirmed, showed bodies of young men with bullet wounds and hands tied lying dead in streets.

The men, all civilians, were mostly shot in the head or chest on Tuesday in their homes or in streets in the villages of Idita, Iblin and Balshon in Idlib province near the border with Turkey, the Syrian Network for Human Rights said.

"Military forces chased civilians in these villages, arrested them and killed them without hesitation. They concentrated on male youths and whoever did not manage to escape was to be killed," the organisation said in a statement.

"Responsibility for this massacre lies with the general commander of the military and armed forces, Bashar al-Assad," the statement said, adding that only one youth survived the shootings.

One video shows the body of three youths, one visibly shot in the chest, on the floor of a house in Balshon.

"This is martyr Hassan Abdel Qadi al-Saeed, his brother Hussein and (their relative) Bashir Mohammad al-Saeed. They were liquidated by Assad's forces in the Feb. 21 massacre," a voice of a man showing the bodies says, with the sound of women wailing in the background.

The developments come as the United States appeared to ease their stance on eventually arming the Syrian opposition, saying if a political solution to the crisis were impossible it might have to consider other options.

The comments, made by officials at both the White House and the State Department, marked a shift in emphasis by Washington, which thus far has stressed its policy of not arming the opposition and has said little about alternatives.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet with representatives of some 70 countries in Tunis on Friday for the first "Friends of Syria" meeting to coordinate the international community's next steps to respond the nearly year-long uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"We still believe that a political solution is what's needed in Syria," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

"We don't want to take actions that would contribute to the further militarisation of Syria, because that could take the country down a dangerous path. But we don't rule out additional measures."

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, asked if the United States was shifting its stance on arming the rebels, said Washington did not want to see the violence increase and was concentrating on political efforts to halt the bloodshed.

"That said ... if we can't get Assad to yield to the pressure that we are all bringing to bear, we may have to consider additional measures."

She declined to elaborate on what those measures might be.

The official comments on Tuesday followed a cautious assessment from General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, who told CNN over the weekend that Washington still did not know enough about Assad's opponents.

"Until we're a lot clearer about who they are and what they are, I think it would be premature to talk about arming them," General Dempsey said.

The United States and its allies hope this week's Tunis meeting will allow them to begin drawing up a plan for Syria after Russia and China vetoed a Western-backed Arab League peace plan at the UN Security Council.

US officials suggest the meeting will focus on ways to increase economic pressure on Assad through additional sanctions and to ramp up humanitarian relief for victims of the repression.

But Arab diplomats have suggested that formal or informal moves to arm the rebels may also be discussed.

Some US politicians such as Republican Senator John McCain support efforts to arm the Syrian rebels – if not directly by the United States, then by other countries or third parties.

"There are ways to get weapons to people who are fighting against this kind of oppression, we showed that in Libya," Mr McCain told reporters on a visit to Jerusalem.

"To somehow sit by and watch this massacre continue without exploring and employing every option that we possibly can to stop it is a betrayal of everything the United States stands for and believes in."

With both Russia and Iran firmly backing Assad's government, political analysts say tacit U.S. support for arming rebel fighters could be risky given Syria's complex ethnic and religious make-up and strategically important position.

"Force employed by the Friends of Syria should be the last step of an escalatory ladder," Robert Danin, a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in an opinion piece on Tuesday.

"Arming the Free Syrian Army and other opposition groups may eventually help topple Assad, but it also increases the potential for a fractured or failed state."

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Oppositie niet langer tegen buitenlands ingrijpen
De Syrische oppositie verzet zich steeds minder tegen buitenlands militair ingrijpen. ,,We vinden bijna dat interventie de enige oplossing is. Er zijn twee kwaden: militair ingrijpen of een slepende burgeroorlog'', zei Basma Kodmani van de Syrische Nationale Raad woensdag in Parijs.

De raad wil ook dat er humanitaire corridors worden ingesteld in Syrië. Via die routes moeten hulpverleners de belegerde protesthaarden Homs, Idlib en Deraa kunnen bereiken. Kodmani hoopt dat Rusland druk kan uitoefenen op het Syrische bewind, zodat de hulpverleners veilig kunnen werken.

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Revealing the Scale and Horror of
Assad’s Torture Chambers:

The research was conducted by 23 human rights researchers inside and outside Syria. The
names and locations of detention centres were initially cited by survivors, family members and
friends interviewed in connection with Avaaz’s ongoing work to verify disappearances and
casualties in Syria, which included information on illegal detention and death under torture. The
work of confirming death tolls is conducted by 58 monitors across Syria. On the basis of this
primary information and statements from victims of torture and illegal detention, the research
team drew up a list of detention centres and torture techniques. The team then verified the
data on detention facility locations, descriptions and torture techniques by comparing them with
other detainee statements and intersecting the data by interviewing numerous torture survivors
and former detainees who had been released from the same locations and had faced similar
accusations. The team also interviewed recently-released former prisoners of conscience (who
had been detained prior to the uprising) and documented information they had received from
detainees. The names of officers involved in torture (including ordering detention in facilities
where torture occurred; ordering torture; or giving on-site, direct orders to torture), or signing
orders for executions of defected soldiers, came minimally from 11 eyewitnesses, including at
least one former member of the military. In three cases, 27 eyewitness provided evidence on
the names of officers who ordered their detention and torture. Confirmation from insider sources
working for the regime was used to confirm information about torture and detention facilities but
not to research individual names.

Executive Summary

● Avaaz has identified and verified the location of 416 detention centres being used by
the Assad regime to imprison and torture regime opponents, a portion of which are
listed below. Those locations can be found at this map: http://disappeared.avaaz.org/detentioncentres.html

● More than 617 people have been confirmed killed under torture by regime forces since
the crackdown started on March 15 of last year.

● Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown on Syria’s popular uprising has claimed at least 6,874
victims and seen a further 69,000 people detained over the course of the last nine
months.

● Of the 69,000 detained since March, over 37,000 people remain in detention and
some 32,000 people have been released, many of them bearing scars from torture and
violence.

● Detention centres are managed by various government security bodies, including
the Political Security, Military Security, State Security, and Airforce Intelligence. This
report presents the organisational structure and detention centre locations within each
province.

● Torture is prevalent and takes place in almost all detention centres. Most severe
forms of torture take place in the military, security and air force intelligence branches
where victims are interrogated before they are sometimes transferred to prisons. Most
former detainees have reported that conditions in prisons are less terrible than those of
state branches, as they receive some food in prisons. Aside from torture, many of the
detainees gave information about severe overcrowding.

● In addition to the listed prisons, there are several locations for illegal, make-shift
detention centres, including local schools, soccer fields, movie theaters, hospitals,
factories, sport stadiums, warehouses, abandoned buildings, and underground storage
areas. There are individual military detention facilities on every single military base in
Syria.

The research was conducted in Arabic then translated to English.

Three local organizations contributed information which Avaaz independently verified.

I. Torture Methods Employed by the Syrian Regime

Former detainees have described numerous brutal torture methods employed by the regime.
Transcriptions of survivors’ testimonies are included according to the location where the torture
was perpetrated. Some torture methods commonly employed by Syrian regime torturers are
listed below:

● The German Chair - The detainee is tied to a metal chair with moving parts, then the
chair is folded backwards so that it places extreme pressure on the prisoner's spine and
leads to a quasi-permanent asphyxiation. This treatment may cause vertebrae to be
fractured, a paralysis of the arms for months, chronic headaches, hypertension, urinary
tract infections and stomach and intestinal problems.

● Electrocution, applied to genitals and other body parts.

● The Wheel - The detainee is put inside one or two tires of a large vehicle. The detainee’s
feet and legs are inserted first, then the detainee is folded over, with hands tied behind
the back, and the head is inserted into the tire so that the detainee is in a “U” shapem
with only the head and feet on the wheels; the detainee is beaten on his face and feet
until they bleed.

● Removal of fingernails and toenails.

● Suspension by the hands from the ceiling being made to stand or dangle for days.

● Severe beating on the head and body, or smashing detainee’s head against radiators or
walls.

● Extinguishing cigarettes on the body.

● Sleep deprivation.

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'Colvin wilde slachtoffers tonen'

Weer verdwijnt een bekend gezicht uit de oorlogsjournalistiek: Marie Colvin, een Amerikaanse verslaggeefster die voor de Britse Sunday Times werkte, is overleden. Omgekomen bij een beschieting in het Syrische Homs. Ook een Franse journalist stierf. Dat is nieuws. Zo groot nieuws blijkbaar dat de negen burgers die op datzelfde moment overleden vaak niet worden vermeld, of misschien ergens aan het eind van het bericht over de journalisten.

Terwijl Marie Colvin juist op pad was om niet zelf nieuws te worden, maar om de slachtoffers in Syrië een gezicht te geven. Daarvoor nam zij uitzonderlijk veel risico. Op dit moment is Syrië zonder visum binnenkomen al ingewikkeld, maar een bezoek aan Homs is door het offensief van het Syrische leger nog ingewikkelder en vooral levensgevaarlijk. In de oorlogsjournalistiek geldt dat je voor een verhaal best veel risico kunt nemen, maar dat het nooit je leven waard is. Alleen is het soms moeilijk te bepalen waar de grens ligt van wel en niet mogelijk. Zelf hanteer ik de regel dat er een vergroot risico op pech mag zijn, maar niet een kleine kans op geluk.

Marie Colvin deed uiteraard haar best de kans op pech klein te houden, al is dat bij willekeurige beschietingen in de oppositiewijk Baba Amr in Homs bijzonder moeilijk. Samen met andere journalisten schuilde Colvin daar in een soort perscentrum van de Syrische oppositie. In een interview met de BBC had ze de dag ervoor nog beschreven hoe verschrikkelijk de situatie in Baba Amr is. Talloze granaten vallen er neer. Er is nauwelijks medische zorg voor de vele ernstig gewonden. Een kind van 2 jaar was voor haar ogen overleden. Of beter: voor haar oog. Enkelvoud.

Want Marie Colvin raakte jaren geleden tijdens beschietingen in Sri Lanka een oog kwijt. Sindsdien droeg ze een zwart lapje over haar oogkas. Die ervaring heeft haar er niet van weerhouden om daarna gewoon weer vele oorlogen of revoluties te bezoeken. Je zag haar overal. Eigenlijk kon je het beroep van oorlogsjournalist niet uitoefenen zonder haar ooit te zijn tegengekomen.

Libanon 2006, de Balkan, Irak. De laatste keer dat ik haar sprak was afgelopen september in de Libische hoofdstad Tripoli, net na de val van de stad. Ze kon zich een beetje van de dagelijkse nieuwsdynamiek afzijdig houden, omdat ze voor een krant werkte die alleen op zondag verschijnt. Maar dat vereiste wel een zoektocht naar speciale verhalen, wat ze uitstekend kon. Haar ene oog registreerde met de kracht van twee.

Nu is ze aanstaande zondag ongetwijfeld zelf dat speciale verhaal, in haar eigen krant. Dat heeft zij nooit gewild. Al helpt het verhaal dat over haar gaat wellicht om hernieuwde aandacht te krijgen voor al die anonieme slachtoffers. Veel van die slachtoffers vragen zich op dit moment af waarom er in het ene land wel om "humanitaire redenen" door de internationale gemeenschap wordt ingegrepen en in het andere niet.

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Marie Colvin killed: Syrian forces had pledged to kill 'any journalist who set foot on Syrian soil'
Syrian forces murdered journalist Marie Colvin after pledging to kill "any journalist who set foot on Syrian soil", it has emerged.

The 55-year-old Sunday Times reporter was killed alongside French photographer Remi Ochlik, 28, in a rocket attack on the besieged city of Homs this morning.

Now communication between Syrian Army officers intercepted by Lebanese intelligence staff has revealed that direct orders were issued to target the makeshift press centre in which Colvin had been broadcasting.

If journalists were successfully killed, then the Syrians were told to make out that they had died accidentally in firefights with terrorist groups, the radio traffic revealed.

Just before she died, Colvin had appeared on numerous international broadcast networks including the BBC and CNN to accuse Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad's forces of â murder'.

Jean-Pierre Perrin, a journalist for the Paris-based Liberation newspaper who was with Colvin in Homs last week, claimed they had been told that the Syrian Army was "deliberately" going to shell their centre.

Mr Perrin said: "A few days ago we were advised to leave the city urgently and we were told: 'If they (the Syrian Army) find you they will kill you'.

"I then left the city with the journalist from the Sunday Times but then she wanted to go back when she saw that the major offensive had not yet taken place."

Mr Perrin, who headed to Beirut from Homs, said the Syrians were "fully aware" that the press centre was broadcasting direct evidence of crimes against humanity, including the murdering of women and children.

"The Syrian Army issued orders to 'kill any journalist that set foot on Syrian soil'."

It was in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, that Mr Perin received news of the intercepted Syrian Army radio traffic.

The Syrians knew that if they destroyed the press centre, then there would be "no more information coming out of Homs", said Mr Perrin.

Mr Perin said the centre had a limited electricity supply and internet access, thanks to a generator. This made it a â privileged location' compared to the rest of the decimated city.

In her broadcasts on Tuesday night, Colvin had accused the Syrian Army of perpetrating the "complete and utter lie that they are only targeting terrorists." Describing what was happening as "absolutely sickening", Colvin said: "The Syrian army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians."'

Other sources in Damascus confirmed that Syrians, including senior Army officers and Al-Assad himself, would have been able to watch Colvin's broadcasts.

Syrian authorities however have claimed they were not aware the journalists had entered the country.

“The authorities had no information that the two journalists had entered Syrian territory,” Adnan Mahmud told AFP.

Mr Mahmud said that he had asked “specialised authorities in Homs to look for them (Colvin and Ochlik).” He did not acknowledge whether they were dead or alive.

“The ministry urges all foreign journalists who entered Syria illegally to report to the nearest immigration office to legalise their presence,” he added.

Frederic Mitterrand, the French culture minister, said Colvin and Ochlik had been "targeted and tried to flee the bombardment", and eyewitnesses in Homs said were killed as they fled the centre.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president said of the attacks: "That's enough now. This regime must go and there is no reason that Syrians don't have the right to live their lives and choose their destiny freely. If journalists were not there, the massacres would be a lot worse."

Reporters working in Homs feared the Army had "locked on" to their satellite phone signals and targeted the buildings they were coming from.

Abu Abdu al-Homsi, an opposition activist, confirmed that the Army had cut phone lines into the city and were bombing any buildings where they detected mobile phone signals.