Despite its involvement in torturing thousands of Syrians, the Syrian regime issues a law criminalizing torture

Northern Syria -

Nightmares and painful memories of torture continue to haunt the Syrian journalist Muhammad Amin Mira, who spent 7 months in the military security prisons in the city of Aleppo, and he did not leave his imagination and heard the cries of tortured women in secret prisons established by the Syrian regime at the beginning of the popular movement against him in the spring of 2011. .

Mira, who was arrested in 2014 on charges of financing terrorism, was a witness to various forms of torture in the dark cellars of the prison camp, which the interrogators took pleasure in while beating detainees with sticks and thick water hoses, to force them to confess to charges they did not commit.

Mira tells Al Jazeera Net that he will not forget how 3 of the interrogators beat him with electric cables and sticks in a small room until he fainted, then woke up to the heat of extinguishing the cigarettes in his chest, so he begged them to leave him in exchange for signing all the charges.

The Syrian journalist - who was released from detention on financial bail - describes the law "criminalizing torture" recently issued by the Syrian regime as "a farce", considering that the regime sets laws and constitutions, before it violates them and empties them of their content and purpose on the ground.

And at the end of last March, the President of the Syrian regime, Bashar al-Assad, issued Law No. (16) to "criminalize torture", as approved by the People's Assembly in its session held on March 28 last.

Article No. (2) of the law included the sequence of penalties according to the seriousness of the criminal act during torture, ranging from execution to life or temporary imprisonment, according to the official page of the Presidency of the Syrian Arab Republic.

Systematic torture

14,537 Syrians were killed under torture between March 2011 and 2021 at the hands of the various parties to the conflict in Syria, according to the report of the "Syrian Network for Human Rights" issued on the occasion of the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.

The regime was responsible for the killing of most torture victims, at a rate of 98.63%, as 14,338 were killed by it, including 173 children and 74 women, according to the report.

The director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, Fadel Abdul Ghani, said that the council that approved the law does not represent the Syrian people, stressing that the appointment of its members is done by the security services, "which is something known to all Syrians."

Abdul-Ghani confirmed - in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net - that the network verified the names of the members of the People's Assembly that represents the Syrian regime, as it was found that a third of its members are affiliated with security forces involved in violations against the Syrian people.

Abdul Ghani said that torture in Syria since 2011 has become a pattern of state policy, and a methodology of the Syrian regime, according to reports issued by international and Syrian human rights organizations, including the Syrian Network for Human Rights.

evasion of crimes

However, Syrian human rights defenders went beyond making fun of the law, as they saw it as an attempt to evade the crimes and violations committed against the Syrian people since the beginning of the revolution against the regime in March 2011.

The danger of this law lies - according to the Syrian human rights defender Abdel Nasser Hoshan - that it does not include crimes committed before its entry into force on March 30, 2022, in accordance with the principle of non-retroactivity of criminal laws.

Hoshan said - in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net - that limiting the jurisdiction to consider torture crimes in the courts of the Syrian regime, and not others, is a clear indication of his intention to enable criminals to escape punishment through the moot courts that everyone knows.

The jurist called on international and regional human rights organizations to assist and enable victims to access justice before the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, or foreign national courts that take on universal jurisdiction.

Not an April Fool's Day!

In turn, Human Rights Watch ridiculed the Syrian regime's law criminalizing torture, beginning a report with the phrase, "This is not an April Fool's Day. Syria, where torture is considered a regular occurrence, has issued a law criminalizing torture."

The organization considered that it is difficult to determine the goals of the regime from issuing the law, pointing out that it could be linked to the attempts of some countries - especially in Europe - to try the Syrian regime and some of those involved in torture in its prisons and detention centers.

With thousands of people subjected to torture in Syrian prisons, holding those involved in torture accountable through the law is "a matter that is difficult to take seriously," according to the organization's report.

The report called on the regime's government to release detainees in official and unofficial detention centers, and "real cooperation with international efforts to find out the fate of thousands of forcibly disappeared persons, in addition to holding those responsible to account."