60,000 'tortured to death in Syrian jails'

At least 60,000 people have died due to torture and maltreatment in Syrian jails since a revolt against President Bashar al-Assad broke out five years ago, a monitoring group says, quoting sources within the country's security forces.

The pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Saturday reported that the figure of 60,000 deaths came from reliable sources, primarily in the air force intelligence and state security agencies and at the notorious Sednaya prison near Damascus.

The victims died as a direct result of torture or due to a lack of food and medicine inside the detention facilities, the UK-based monitoring group said.

The observatory said that using other sources, it had itself documented the deaths of 14,456 detainees, including 110 children under the age of 18.

The Syrian opposition has pushed for the release of detainees as a humanitarian measure to facilitate the resumption of peace talks in the Swiss city of Geneva.

UN rights investigators in February accused the Syrian government of carrying out an extermination policy among its prisoners.

The investigators cited testimony from witnesses who recounted inmates dying from "torture, disease, and appalling prison conditions" and then being buried in mass graves.

Earlier this month, inmates in Hama prison in central Syria rioted and took guards hostage in protest over an attempt to transfer several prisoners to Sednaya prison.

The inmates feared the transferees, who had been sentenced to death by ad-hoc military courts, would face execution, the observatory reported at the time.

Authorities regained control after agreeing to the release of dozens of detainees, according to the monitoring group.

The observatory called on the UN to bring pressure to bear on the Syrian government for the release of what it said were more than 200,000 remaining detainees.

Syria's conflict, which began with peaceful protests in March 2011, has spiralled into a multi-sided civil war that has cost a quarter of a million lives and displaced half the country's population, according to UN estimates.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/60000-tortured-to-death-in-syri...


Should we double our 12,000 Syrian Refugees, and speed up the uptake?

____ wrote on May 22^nd, 2016 at 9:38am:


We could streamline the intake procedure, 23 in 8 months on a 12000 promise whilst we drop bombs on their heads reeks of injustice.

____ wrote on May 22^nd, 2016 at 9:49am:


So you will help Syrians by splitting from the US foreign policy because it's US foreign policy that's currently causing millions to be displaced and be killed?  Which policy at present is causing the Syrians to be killed or flee?

John Smith wrote on May 22^nd, 2016 at 9:54am:

That he thinks Syrians fleeing is the result of US foreign policy shows how deluded he is.

____ wrote on May 22^nd, 2016 at 9:56am:


Yes, having a totalitarian government had nothing to do with it.  It was all Americas fault, and climate change.  And the solution is to have a unilateral foreign policy and bring all Syrians to Australia instead of help in bring peace to the region.

Great stuff. Only a green can be this dumb.

sir prince duke alevine wrote on May 22^nd, 2016 at 9:52am:


You expect Australian politics to cause peace across the globe.

Australia, as an independent nations, has a greater opportunity to influence. Backing US foreign policy blindly, just makes us part of the problem.

The US supported the bombing of groups opposed to Assad. The US supported Russia, as they too bombed groups opposed to Assad.

As the US supported, Australia blindly supported too.

____ wrote on May 22^nd, 2016 at 10:02am:


Yes, everything is the fault of the US.  All Syrians fleeing is the fault of the US.  Idiot greens.

The only thing we can agree on in this case is that the US foreign policy, along with NATO and all the rest of the allies, Australia included, got one thing wrong: they Should immediately send in coalition forces and end this crisis once and for all.  It has always been blatantly clear that the Syrian people are unable to bring peace to themselves. 

But your solution is to leave Australia without any voice and instead continue The refugee crisis. This is the "ethical" greens.

Good question SPDA.
Keep it up, but do try to widen your scope and not just be anti-Green.

Swinny there's a war going on over there Barbarians vs the Barbarians...  what are the Greens proposing we do about it?
Transfer the Syrian population to Australia perhaps?
No thanks that would be just transferring the problem to here.

We and the western world are not the answer to the problems elsewhere in the world...  importing problem populations and failing nation states is not the answer.

Somalia has been at war for 25 years...  I'm sorry...  what do the Greens propose be done about that and the hundreds of thousands refugees living in Kenya and Ethiopia?

The UN has been a failure on this issue, is that their fault or the fault of the Somalian people?  IF ever intervention was needed to fix something this is it.  But then we all know that intervention does not automatically create a solution certainly not long term ones.  How long till they revert back to civil war.

So Swinny...  what's your solution to the worlds problem people...?