Washington Post: Syrian revealed atrocities Assad asks: Why the world is silent?

The writer Josh Rogin says that the Syrian citizen who revealed the atrocities of Syrian President Bashar Assad asks: Why the world is silent?

In an article published in The Washington Post, Rogen points out that one of the military dissidents was known as "Caesar" and that he arrived in Washington in 2014 for the first time.

He adds that this defector risked himself and brought with him a large number of evidence of mass atrocities in the Syrian regime's cells.

Five years later, Caesar wonders why the international community has done nothing to stop Assad's constant slaughter of innocent people.

Caesar provided more than 55,000 photographs of men, women and children tortured to death in Assad's prisons, as confirmed by the FBI as evidence of torture, starvation and the killing of more than 11,000 civilians in detention in Syria.

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Rogen adds that the images were shown worldwide, and that in 2014 Caesar's testimony was heard before the US Congress, where he warned the United States that there are more than 150,000 detainees in Syrian regime prisons suffering greatly.

Now, in 2019, Caesar is no longer just a voice for these innocent prisoners, but one of the last remaining figures in the Syrian revolution struggling for international survival and attention.

He added that "Caesar" told him in an interview in Washington that the international community has completely abandoned the Syrians, and that it has abandoned the countless civilians killed in the war that ravaged the country for years.

Roger notes that Caesar, who lives in an unknown country, has sacrificed everything to smuggle evidence from Syria, and that he risked his life and that of his entire family and the families of many who helped him in this context.

Shock and anger
The writer says that the evidence presented by "Caesar" initially shocked and angry in America, and that the Secretary of War Crimes at the State Department said that "Caesar" evidence proved that the Assad regime was "the worst machine of cruel death since the Nazis."

Congressional leaders made more efforts and promised to take action. Caesar's images were shown in foreign capitals on television, at the Holocaust Memorial Museum and at UN halls. The Syrian people had hope but nothing happened.

Rogge points out that the administration of former US President Barack Obama had established a council to prevent atrocities in Syria, but did not take decisive action to stop these continuing mass atrocities.

The Trump administration financed the investigation of Syrian war crimes only when it became publicly embarrassed.

He says the Caesar team has begun a series of domestic prosecutions in European countries, focusing on photographs of dead Europeans found in the collection of photographs Caesar brought.

These cases show some promise, but in Washington Congress cannot pass simple legislation to punish the Assad regime and its war crimes partners, Russia and Iran.