Post date: Apr 09, 2012 6:35:27 PM
UNKNOWN LOCATION (APRIL 9, 2012) (HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH) - Syrian security forces have summarily executed over 100 civilians and wounded or captured opposition fighters in recent attacks on opponents of President Bashar al-Assad, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Monday (April 9).
It documents more than a dozen incidents involving at least 101 victims since late 2011, many of them in March 2012, in which Syrians were killed in cold blood by security forces and pro-government militiamen.Human Rights Watch distributed video testimony from a Syrian man who alleged he witnessed how pro-government militias tortured and executed two men in a public square.
"We were in Dei'a when the army and the shabiha [pro-government militias] arrived. They gathered us in the square. They brought two men, they were blindfolded with their hands and feet attached with a plastic cable. They took them out of the car, a military car, they took them to the square. The men who got out of the car were wearing military pants and military shoes, and they were shirtless. They had marks of torture on their bodies, there were marks of torture. They took them into the square and said that these people were from a terrorist group, they said that in front of the people of Dei'a. There were about 500 people, men and women. And in front of us, they started to beat them with the butt of their Kalashnikovs. They started beating their bodies, their legs, and their heads. After they tortured them and all that, a general and a lieutenant-general came and gave the order to open fire on the soldiers dissenting from the Syrian army. They started to shoot at them. They were about four soldiers, and each shot about 30 bullets," said Khaled, a 27-year-old resident of Kherbet al-Jouz - a Syrian village close to the Turkish border - who had fled into Turkey.
In another video testimony, a Syrian opposition fighter called Ali reported the shelling of a roundabout, in which six people were killed instantly and two wounded were executed.
"A shell was dropped on al Dabbit roundabout. There were eight people, six were killed right away. I was watching through binoculars. Six died right away and two were still alive. They were executed by soldiers on foot, they urinated on them, they shot them, the tanks drove over them and started approaching us," Ali said.
Human Rights Watch said the U.N. Security Council should ensure that any U.N. mission mandated to supervise the six-point peace plan brokered by the U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan "would be in a position to document such crimes."
But with less than 24 hours to go before the first deadline for implementation of the ceasefire plan, there was little sign of any let-up in the fighting in Syria that would permit the deployment of a small, unarmed UN observer mission.
The exact number of victims of the extrajudicial executions is impossible to verify given the difficulties of accessing and evaluating the information from Syria.
Syrian security forces have summarily executed over 100 civilians and wounded or captured opposition fighters in recent attacks on opponents of President Bashar al-Assad, Human Rights Watch says.