Page 1 of 1 [ 7 posts ] 

Fnord
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 6 May 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 60,939
Location:      

17 Dec 2024, 8:31 pm

Syrian mass graves expose "machinery of death" under Assad
By Timour Azhari and Anthony Deutsch
December 18, 20244:38 AM GMT+8

Summary

• Not seen anything like this since the Nazis, Rapp says
• International Commission on Missing Persons says 157,000 reported missing
• Assad always denied government committed human rights violations

QUTAYFAH, Syria, Dec 17 (Reuters) - An international war crimes prosecutor said on Tuesday that evidence emerging from mass grave sites in Syria has exposed a state-run "machinery of death" under toppled leader Bashar al-Assad in which he estimated more than 100,000 people were tortured and murdered since 2013.

Speaking after visiting two mass grave sites in the towns of Qutayfah and Najha near Damascus, former U.S. war crimes ambassador at large Stephen Rapp told Reuters: "We certainly have more than 100,000 people that were disappeared into and tortured to death in this machine.

"I don't have much doubt about those kinds of numbers given what we've seen in these mass graves."

"We really haven't seen anything quite like this since the Nazis,"
said Rapp, who led prosecutions at the Rwanda and Sierra Leone war crimes tribunals and is working with Syrian civil society to document war crimes evidence and is helping to prepare for any eventual trials.

"From the secret police who disappeared people from their streets and homes, to the jailers and interrogators who starved and tortured them to death, to the truck drivers and bulldozer drivers who hid their bodies, thousands of people were working in this system of killing," Rapp said.

"We are talking about a system of state terror, which became a machinery of death."

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are estimated to have been killed since 2011, when Assad's crackdown on protests against him spiraled into a full-scale war.

Both Assad and his father Hafez, who preceded him as president and died in 2000, have long been accused by rights groups and governments of widespread extrajudicial killings, including mass executions within the country's prison system and using chemical weapons against the Syrian people.

 More at Source 


:roll: And some people are falsely accusing the Israelis of genocide.  Sad.



lostonearth35
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 5 Jan 2010
Age: 51
Gender: Female
Posts: 12,913
Location: Lost on Earth, waddya think?

17 Dec 2024, 10:35 pm

The Middle East won't be happy until everyone in it is completely killed. And then the rest of the world.



funeralxempire
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Age: 40
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 30,330
Location: Right over your left shoulder

18 Dec 2024, 1:05 am

Fnord wrote:
:roll: And some people are falsely accusing the Israelis of genocide.  Sad.


Imagine thinking the Assad regime engaging in genocide is somehow proof the Israelis aren't. :lol:


_________________
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
You can't advance to the next level without stomping on a few Koopas.


Carbonhalo
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Nov 2007
Age: 63
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,676
Location: Musoria

18 Dec 2024, 2:31 am

Just like Trump saying he did a good job...if Netanyahu said it's true then it must be so.

si aliquid vociferatus est tunc est probare



Fnord
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 6 May 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 60,939
Location:      

18 Dec 2024, 5:40 am

funeralxempire wrote:
Fnord wrote:
:roll: And some people are falsely accusing the Israelis of genocide.  Sad.
Imagine thinking the Assad regime engaging in genocide is somehow proof the Israelis aren't. :lol:
Imagine someone laughing about anything related to genocide.



funeralxempire
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Age: 40
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 30,330
Location: Right over your left shoulder

18 Dec 2024, 5:52 am

Fnord wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
Fnord wrote:
:roll: And some people are falsely accusing the Israelis of genocide.  Sad.
Imagine thinking the Assad regime engaging in genocide is somehow proof the Israelis aren't. :lol:
Imagine someone laughing about anything related to genocide.


The absurd logic employed is laughable.

No one's (as near as I can tell) denying or downplaying that the Assad regime is genocidal.

But they're not the only regime in the region that's facing credible accusations of genocide and those accusations aren't magically false merely because supporters of that regime would like them to be.

Snark alone isn't enough to defend Israel from the absolutely well-founded accusations. Loudly proclaiming themselves as guiltless victims in response to those accusations won't either.


_________________
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
You can't advance to the next level without stomping on a few Koopas.


RetroGamer87
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 30 Jul 2013
Age: 37
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,105
Location: Adelaide, Australia

18 Dec 2024, 11:42 pm

funeralxempire wrote:
Fnord wrote:
:roll: And some people are falsely accusing the Israelis of genocide.  Sad.


Imagine thinking the Assad regime engaging in genocide is somehow proof the Israelis aren't. :lol:


They're all killing eachother. My solution is to turn Israel into a sanctuary for migratory birds.


_________________
The days are long, but the years are short