TORTURE, flogging, and summary killings are rife in secret prisons run by the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), an armed group that controls large areas of northern Syria, said Amnesty International in a briefing published on Thursday.
It said: ‘ISIS claims it is fighting to establish an “Islamic state” and has introduced harsh rules that it said were based on Shari’a (Islamic law), including cruel and inhuman punishments such as flogging and summary public execution.’
In the 18-page briefing, Rule of fear: ISIS abuses in detention in northern Syria, Amnesty International identifies seven detention facilities that ISIS uses in al-Raqqa governorate and Aleppo.
‘Those abducted and detained by ISIS include children as young as eight who are held together with adults in the same cruel and inhuman conditions,’ said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
Former detainees describe a shocking catalogue of abuses in which they or others were flogged with rubber generator belts or cables, tortured with electric shocks or forced to adopt a painful stress position known as aqrab (scorpion), in which a detainee’s wrists are secured together over one shoulder.
Some of those held by ISIS are suspected of theft or other crimes; others are accused of ‘crimes’ against Islam, such as smoking cigarettes or zina, sex outside marriage.
Others were seized for challenging ISIS’s rule or because they belonged to rival armed groups opposed to the Syrian government. ISIS is also suspected of abducting and detaining foreign nationals, including journalists covering the fighting in Syria.
Several children were among detainees who received severe floggings, according to testimonies obtained by Amnesty International.
On one occasion, an anguished father had to endure screams of pain as ISIS captors tormented his son in a nearby room.
Two detainees related how they witnessed a child of about 14 receive a flogging of more than 90 lashes during interrogation at Sadd al-Ba’ath, an ISIS prison in al-Raqqa governorate.
Another child of about 14 who ISIS accused of stealing a motorbike was repeatedly flogged over several days.
‘Flogging anyone, let alone children, is cruel and inhuman, and a gross abuse of human rights,’ said Amnesty’s Luther. ‘ISIS should cease its use of flogging and other cruel punishments.’
Amnesty International is calling on ISIS to end its appalling treatment of detainees and for the group’s leaders to instruct their forces to respect human rights and abide by international humanitarian law.
Several former detainees told the rights organisation that they were seized by masked gunmen who took them to undisclosed locations, where they were held for periods of up to 55 days.
Some never learnt where they were but Amnesty International has identified ISIS prisons at seven locations: Mabna al-Mohafaza, Idarat al-Markabat and al-Mer’ab, all in al-Raqqa city; Sadd al Ba’ath and al-’Akershi oil facility, both elsewhere in al-Raqqa governorate; and Mashfa al-Atfal and Maqar Ahmed Qaddour in Aleppo.
The Sadd al-Ba’ath prison is beside a dam on the Euphrates River at al-Mansura, where the local Shari’a court judge, who invariably appeared wearing an explosives belt, has instituted a reign of terror over its detainees.
Former detainees accuse him of presiding over grotesquely unfair ‘trials’ lasting no more than a few minutes as other detainees look on, and handing down death penalties which are subsequently carried out.
At his direction, detainees have been mercilessly flogged; on at least one occasion, he is said to have personally joined in the flogging.
At al-’Akershi oil facility, which ISIS also appears to use as a military training ground, detainees were subjected to the aqrab as a means of torture, according to the testimonies of two men who were held there in recent months.
One spent 40 days in solitary confinement, for part of which he was chained up in a tiny room full of electrical equipment with fuel on the floor.
‘After years in which they were prey to the brutality of the al-Assad regime, the people of al-Raqqa and Aleppo are now suffering under a new form of tyranny imposed on them by ISIS, in which arbitrary detention, torture and executions have become the order of the day,’ said Luther.
Amnesty International is calling on the international community to take concrete steps to block the flow of arms and other support to ISIS and other armed groups implicated in committing war crimes and other serious human rights abuses.
‘The Turkish government, in particular, should prevent its territory being used by ISIS to bring in arms and recruits to Syria,’ said Luther.
‘As well, Gulf states that have voiced support for the armed groups fighting against the Syrian government should take action to prevent arms flows, equipment or other support reaching ISIS in view of its appalling human rights record,’ the Amnesty official demanded.
• Syria’s Permanent Representative to UN, Dr Bashar al-Jaafari said on Thursday that the reality of events in Syria is clear-cut.
He pointed to the extent of the outrageous crimes committed against the Syrian people by the armed terrorist groups, mostly linked to Al-Qaeda and brought by the Saudi regime, which is ‘the main funder and supporter to terrorism hotbeds around the world’.
Al-Jaafari’s remarks came in the framework of Syria’s statement prior to the UN General-Assembly’s adopting a draft resolution presented by Saudi Arabia against Syria under the title of ‘human rights condition in Syria’.
He said that the international legal framework within which UN member states are working, is based on the principle of non-interference in any state’s internal affairs under any pretext, which was documented in several international resolution charters, at the top of which is the UN Charter.
Al-Jaafari added: ‘Proposing such sort of politicised resolutions, which is addressing a state in particular, violates the provisions of the Charter in general and hinders the bases of a peaceful political solution that is built on an inter-Syrian comprehensive national dialogue.’
He clarified that such resolutions would encourage continuing armed violence in service of certain countries that seek feverishly to foil the convening of the Geneva-2 Conference.
‘The Saudi regime, with the help of other states and governments, brought terrorists to Syria from 83 countries, most of which are Arab, Islamic and Western states participating in proposing this politicised and hostile resolution,’ al-Jaafari said.
He said that the exposure of the reality of events in Syria has made many countries reconsider their stances and policies with the aim of correcting the grave mistakes committed against Syria and cleaning their image lest they would be questioned by their peoples and history on their distorted policies throughout the crisis in Syria.
The Syrian representative condemned the hypocrisy of the Saudi rulers in proposing a draft resolution calling for maintaining the Syrian people’s rights.
Al-Jaafari warned that the Saudi regime’s stance will lead to more breeding of terrorism in the world and the eruption of terrorism inside Saudi Arabia itself, as well as the continuation of Syria’s human rights violations by the Takfiri-armed terrorist groups it backs.
He continued to say that the armed terrorist groups are desecrating Adra, a city home to more than 70,000 employees working in 600 factories and plants, where the ugliest crimes are committed against them, such as slaughtering with white arms (non-firing weapons or explosives), burning in furnaces and perpetrating field executions under directives of their funders and the arrangements of sectarian sheikhs.
He questioned ‘this unjustifiable silence of the so-called international community on the fostering of terrorism by regimes of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey’.
Al-Jaafari concluded: ‘You will hear misleading talk lamenting the death of 100,000 victims in Syria, but you will not be briefed by representatives of the regimes of Saudi Arabia, Qatar or Turkey on the reason why these victims have been killed or by whom; neither will they explain how many of victims were killed with the white arms or by suicide bombings.
‘Syria’s delegation urges member states to reconsider their voting and say no to the draft resolution in order not to get dragged behind the illusions of the countries adopting it in an attempt to divert attention from their inhuman, unethical and illegal exercises.’