Amnesty International has urged the new transitional government to collect and safeguard evidence of war crimes [Getty]
Three human rights organisations in Syria have called on the new interim government to preserve all evidence of Bashar al-Assad’s crimes against the Syrian people.
The NGOs issued the call after new images and footage over the past two weeks revealed dire conditions in prisons and several mass graves, which came to light after a rebel-led offensive toppled the Assad regime.
Many of the images showed harrowing torture methods used on detainees, only discovered after rebel groups broke into prisons to free them.
According to The New Arab’s Arabic language sister publication, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, the organisations have urged for the evidence to be preserved so it can be used to find out further information on the fate of tens of thousands of missing people and to prosecute perpetrators of the crimes.
The evidence includes government documents, archives from intelligence agencies and mass grave sites.
On Monday, UN rapporteurs also called for evidence of human rights violations in Syria to be stored and properly documented.
“Documenting and preserving evidence of gross violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed during years of conflict and tyranny is crucial to ensuring accountability” the rapporteurs said in a joint statement.
“All stakeholders must prevent the loss of vital information that contributes to the search for missing persons” the statement added.
Mass graves, detention facilities
According to rights group Amnesty International, the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) affiliated Syrian Salvation Government has already given them assurances that vital evidence would be preserved.
In all the detention facilities visited by researchers from three different rights organisations, official documents were left unprotected, while some had large portions missing or destroyed.
Amnesty International said, citing local residents and former detainees, that in some cases, intelligence and security officials were seen burning key information before fleeing.
Some of the evidence was also taken by families of missing detainees and journalists, the researchers noted.
“These documents may contain vital information about the structure of the Syrian state’s security and intelligence apparatus, the identity of those responsible for serious crimes and details about the detainees held in various locations” Amnesty International said in a statement.
“This is a pivotal moment for Syria’s transitional authorities to act decisively and ensure the preservation of evidence as a cornerstone for accountability and reconciliation” the organisation’s Middle East and North Africa deputy director added.
The rights group went on to urge Syria’s transitional government to publicly commit to securing, collecting and safeguarding the evidence found so it is not tampered with, from archives to intelligence documents and mass graves.
“This will require a coordinated effort, including cooperation with the relevant UN bodies, the International Committee of the Red Cross and specialised Syrian civil society organisations” the organisation said.
Last week, the head of a US based Syrian advocacy organisation said a mass grave outside of Damascus contained the bodies of at least 100,000 people killed under the Assad regime.
“One hundred thousand is the most conservative estimate” of the number of bodies buried at the site, said Mouaz Moustafa, head of the Syrian Emergency Task Force. “It’s a very, very extremely almost unfairly conservative estimate.”
Speaking to Reuters, he said he is sure there are more mass graves and that along with Syrians, victims included US and British citizens.
Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are estimated to have been killed since 2011, when Assad‘s crackdown on protests against his rule grew into a full-scale civil war.
Assad and his father Hafez, who preceded him as president and died in 2000, are accused by Syrians, rights groups and other governments of widespread extrajudicial killings, including mass executions within the country’s notorious prison system.
