{"id":21514,"date":"2017-02-07T10:21:28","date_gmt":"2017-02-07T10:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=21514"},"modified":"2017-02-07T10:21:58","modified_gmt":"2017-02-07T10:21:58","slug":"13000-people-hanged-secret-syrian-prison-amnesty-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/world-news\/13000-people-hanged-secret-syrian-prison-amnesty-says.html","title":{"rendered":"13,000 people hanged in secret at Syrian prison, Amnesty says"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t13,000 people hanged in secret at Syrian prison, Amnesty says<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
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\n\t13,000 people hanged in secret at Syrian prison, Amnesty says:- In the middle of the night, the Syrian prisoners are told they're being transferred.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tBlindfolded, they're moved from their cells to the grounds of Saydnaya prison, north of the capital Damascus.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThey're not told what's next — likely, most don't know what's going to happen to them until they feel the noose around their necks.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tA new report from Amnesty International, Human slaughterhouse, contends that this was the fate of groups of up to 50 people, twice a week, at the prison.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe rights group calculates that as many as 13,000 people were hanged in secret at the Saydnaya prison. The figure is based on result of a year-long investigation, including interviews with 84 witnesses including security guards, detainees, judges and lawyers, Amnesty says. Most of those hanged were civilians "believed to be opposed to the government," the report found.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t"The horrors depicted in this report reveal a hidden, monstrous campaign, authorized at the highest levels of the Syrian government, aimed at crushing any form of dissent within the Syrian population," Lynn Maalouf, the deputy director for research at Amnesty's Beirut office, said in a statement announcing the report.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tCNN has reached out to the Syrian government for comment.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe report contends that the executed detainees were given a sham trial by "a so-called Military Field Court."<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t"The judge will ask the name of the detainee and whether he committed the crime. Whether the answer is yes or no, he will be convicted … This court has no relation with the rule of law. This is not a court," a former judge said, according to Amnesty.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t'Just a headline'<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tSyrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime has previously been accused of extrajudicial killings and war crimes during the country's civil war, which broke out in 2011.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2014, CNN was given a copy of a report that found "direct evidence" of "systematic torture and killing" by the Syrian government, based on photographs leaked by a Syrian defector.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of the report's authors called it a "smoking gun" proving the use of torture.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Assad has steadfastly maintained that many of the accusations leveled against him are politically motivated.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t"I'm just a headline — the bad president, the bad guy, who is killing the good guys," Assad told a group of western visitors, including The New York Times, in November. "You know this narrative. The real reason is toppling the government. This government doesn't fit the criteria of the United States."<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tIn light of its findings, Amnesty is calling on the United Nations to "immediately carry out an independent investigation into the crimes being committed at Saydnaya and demand access for independent monitors to all places of detention."<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe UN estimates that about 400,000 people have been killed since the start of the war and another 4.8 million have fled the country.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tSource:- http:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2017\/02\/07\/middleeast\/syria-executions-amnesty-international-report\/?sr=google_news\n<\/p>\n

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