27 massacres, not one... Witnesses tell Al Jazeera Net horrific details about the solidarity massacre in Damascus

The horrific recording published by the British newspaper “The Guardian” about the massacre of Al-Tadamon neighborhood in the Syrian capital, Damascus, was only one of 27 video recordings of similar massacres in which more than 280 Syrians were killed by elements of the Syrian regime’s intelligence, according to an investigation prepared by the two researchers. Supporters of Shahoud and Ugur Umit Ungor, staff of the Center on the Holocaust and Genocide at the University of Amsterdam.

And the recording, which caused a sensation among the Syrians and turned them in pain, re-shed light on the crimes of the Syrian regime that were committed against civilians during more than a decade of the Syrian revolution, which began in the spring of 2011, and drew attention to events that were almost forgotten, turning Syria into a "crisis." forgotten", according to a recent statement by a UN official.

Recording leak

According to the Guardian report, one of the elements in the Syrian regime's intelligence in Damascus leaked those recordings, which included the mass executions, to the researchers who prepared the investigation, who in turn went through a long and arduous search for the perpetrators who appeared in the recordings.

Matar Ismail, the Syrian journalist who contributed to the preparation of the investigation, says that the Syrian researcher, Ansar Shahoud, created a fake account on the social networking sites Facebook, and began communicating with loyalists of the Syrian regime, including officers and civilians, introducing herself as a researcher loyal to the regime and working on a report on the war in Syria.

Ismail added - in an interview with Al Jazeera Net - that researcher Shahoud succeeded in forming a wide network of relations with regime loyalists, and after a lengthy search, she was able to access the personal account of the perpetrators of the solidarity massacre who appeared in the Guardian's recording, the officer's class, Amjad Al-Youssef, and his colleague Najib Al-Halabi. .

Ismail confirms that the officer’s class, Amjad Youssef, is now at the helm of his work in the Syrian capital, Damascus, after he was transferred from the front-line security officer in Yarmouk camp and the Tadamon neighborhood in Damascus to his main job in the region’s branch of Military Intelligence.

Siege and abuse

In 2013, the date on which the massacre was committed in Al-Tadamon neighborhood, south of the capital, Damascus, several neighborhoods were under siege by the Syrian regime’s checkpoints, most notably Al-Qadam, Al-Tadamon, Al-Hajar Al-Aswad and Yarmouk camp. Military checkpoints.

Media activist from southern Damascus and former detainee Rami al-Sayed says that what he saw in the Guardian's recording was constantly happening at the hands of regime elements, who were known by the people as "Shabiha Nasreen Street".

In an interview with Al-Jazeera Net, Al-Sayed describes the shabiha checkpoints, "Nisreen Street" in the Tadamon neighborhood, as the black hole that was swallowing the people of south Damascus neighborhoods, noting that those arrested by them were considered dead and subjected to torture and abuse.

Al-Sayyid, who was arrested in that area, recounts how the regime’s members were beating, insulting and cursing civilians, stressing that the majority of those who appeared in the recording were arrested hours before the mass executions and being thrown into the pit.

hold criminals accountable

When the recordings of executions and crimes in Solidarity appeared, Syrian and Western voices rose to rush to the account of the Syrian regime and to bring the perpetrators to justice, because the recording bears compelling evidence that shows the perpetrators of crimes against the besieged Syrian civilians.

The director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, Fadel Abdul Ghani, believes that the video documenting the massacre of the regime forces in the Tadamon neighborhood in the capital, Damascus, contains strong evidence that can be built upon judicially.

Abdul-Ghani said - in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net - that "the disclosure of the solidarity massacre will also constitute a political embarrassment for any hand that reaches out to shake hands with the head of the regime, Bashar al-Assad, who leads the army and the armed forces that include the security services."

Abdul-Ghani considered that what distinguishes this report is that it was able to identify the criminal and the branch to which he belongs, "and thus completely condemns the Military Intelligence and the regime affiliated with it."

The Syrian human rights defender stated that the recording was submitted to 3 public prosecutors in Germany, France and the Netherlands, "to start judicial procedures against the perpetrators of this horrific massacre."