DOSSIER

HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN : UNDER ASSAD

The fight against impunity for state torture in Syria: German authorities set international precedent The first trial worldwide on state torture in Syria started at the Higher Regional Court in Koblenz, Germany, in April 2020. This follows the German Federal Prosecutor’s indictment of two former officials of President Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian General Intelligence Directorate in October 2019. Anwar R is accused of being involved in the torture of at least 4000 people between 2011 and 2012 at the General Intelligence al-Khatib Branch prison in . In February 2021, the court sentenced Anwar R’s associate, Eyad A, to four years and six months in prison for aiding and abetting 30 cases of crimes against humanity. This is the first time a former member of the Syrian intelligence services was convicted of a crime under international law. In June 2018, it became public that the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) issued an arrest warrant for Jamil Hassan, head of the Syrian Air Force Intelligence Service until July 2019. These steps were milestones towards justice and accountability for everyone affected by Assad’s torture system, particularly the Syrian torture survivors and activists whose testimony contributed to the arrest warrant, and who work closely with the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR). The Syrian survivors and activists have filed four criminal complaints in Germany based on the principle of universal jurisdiction since 2017. Working with lawyers Anwar al-Bunni (Syrian Center for Legal Studies and Research, SCLSR), Mazen Darwish (Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, SCM), the Caesar Files Group and ECCHR, their goal is to hold high- ranking officials of Assad’s security apparatus to account. The criminal complaints in Germany were followed by similar complaints in Austria in May 2018, in Sweden in February 2019, and in Norway in November 2019. The criminal complaints concerning torture under the Assad government are part of a series of legal interventions by ECCHR. These have targeted the “architects” of the US torture system set up as part of the “war on terror” (filed in Germany and other states), those responsible for torture in (filed in Switzerland and Ireland), and British soldiers for torture during the Iraq war (filed with the International Criminal Court in The Hague).

1 Introduction Torture, execution and forced violations of international law committed disappearances of civilians; air strikes by all parties in the violent conflict in Syria targeting civilian buildings, and extensive since it began in 2011. They continue today. bombing of residential areas; genocide and Syrian and international organizations have sexual enslavement of minorities such as continuously documented grave human Yezidis – these are just some of the

rights violations so that the perpetrators can Russia and China vetoed a resolution to be held to account. refer the situation to the ICC. The international community has However, the UN Human Rights Council condemned these crimes for years, and established the Independent International expressed deep concern about the Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab humanitarian crisis in Syria. However, all Republic (UN CoI Syria) in August 2011 in attempts to resolve the conflict through resolution S-17/1. The commission has a international negotiations have failed. mandate to investigate all alleged violations Military interventions by third parties – of international human rights law in Syria Russia, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the US since March 2011. and France – have killed and wounded In December 2016, the UN General many, and further inflamed the conflict. Assembly established the International, In addition, the long-term unstable political Impartial and Independent Mechanism to situation provided fertile ground for the rise Assist in the Investigation and Prosecution of radical movements in Syria. Conflict of those Responsible for the Most Serious parties like the “Islamic State” and al-Nusra Crimes under International Law Committed were able to establish themselves as in the Syrian Arab Republic since March powerful players, and commit grave human 2011 (IIIM). rights abuses. UN CoI Syria has collected evidence about President Bashar al-Assad’s government is human rights violations by all conflict responsible for numerous war crimes and parties in order to make recommendations crimes against humanity, especially for the to UN member states about future legal systematic torture of political dissidents and proceedings. UN CoI Syria works closely activists – not only since the peaceful with IIIM, which is tasked with “collecting, protests in 2011, but for decades. Those consolidating, preserving, and analyzing responsible for the crimes have nothing to evidence pertaining to violations and abuses fear at home; impunity in Syria is nearly of human rights and humanitarian law,” and absolute. “prepare files to facilitate and expedite fair Systematic torture of civilians in armed and independent criminal proceedings in conflict is a war crime and crime against national, regional, or international courts.” humanity. The international community The principle of universal jurisdiction must defend the absolute prohibition of enables domestic courts to initiate judicial torture, including in armed conflict. If proceedings and hold perpetrators of all victims do not see justice, there will be no ranks accountable. In Germany and other political solution to the conflict. European Union member states have International criminal justice does not initiated universal jurisdiction provide a legal avenue for prosecuting investigations. international crimes committed in Syria: the ECCHR uses universal jurisdiction to International Criminal Court (ICC) does not counter violence with the law. Together have jurisdiction over Syria – it has not with torture survivors who had to flee Syria signed the Rome Statue of the ICC. and were granted international protection in Permanent UN Security Council members Germany, lawyers Anwar al-Bunni and Mazen Darwish, the Caesar Files Group and

ECCHR filed four criminal complaints in the human rights violations committed in 2017 with the German Federal Prosecutor Syria. The German judiciary thereby plays in Karlsruhe concerning crimes against a key role. Many Syrians found refuge from humanity and war crimes. persecution in Germany – now German ECCHR chose to focus the complaints on authorities can send a strong message to torture, as its commission in Assad-run encourage further investigations in different prisons is well documented, and serves as European countries. an example of its decades-long systematic The June 2018 arrest warrant for Jamil and violent repression of the Syrian Hassan was an important first step in that population, which escalated dramatically direction. The arrests of Anwar R and after the government’s brutal suppression of Eyad A followed in February 2019; the trial the peaceful uprisings in 2011. started in April 2020. With this The four criminal complaints filed in development, the German judiciary has sent Germany were ECCHR’s first steps in a an important signal to those affected as well systematic legal intervention with respect to as the international community.

2 Human rights violations by the Assad government President Assad assumed office in 2000. medical facility employees in deliberate From the beginning, he continued his father attacks. It is safe to say that these attacks Hafiz al-Assad’s legacy by suppressing all amount to crimes against humanity and war forms of opposition. crimes. The uprising escalated in 2011, when in the I) TORTURE BY ASSAD’S wake of the Arab Spring, more and more Syrians took to the streets to protest the INTELLIGENCE SERVICES government. Syrian intelligence services The enforced disappearance and torture of responded brutally to the protestors, government critics, opposition politicians organizers and supporters of the non-violent and journalists has been a common protests. Freedom of assembly and freedom characteristic of Assad’s rule for decades. of speech were massively restricted, These practices are well known and political opponents and activists were documented in Syrian torture survivors and arbitrarily detained and tortured in civilian activists’ testimony, ad investigations by and military prisons. At the same time, the international human rights organizations Syrian army started to target the civilian such as and Human population with heavy artillery and Rights Watch. internationally banned weapons such as chemical weapons, cluster ammunition and Syria’s four intelligence services – the Air barrel bombs. Force Intelligence Service (Al-Mukhabarat al-Jawiya), the Military Intelligence Assad’s forces also targeted many civilian Service (Al-Mukhabarat al-Askariya), the facilities, such as hospitals and schools. Political Intelligence Service (Al-Amn al- According to Physicians for Human Rights, Siyasi), the General Intelligence Service the Syrian army has killed nearly 700

(Al-amn al-Amm), and the National For example, the Syrian defector known as Intelligence Service (Al-Amn al-Wattani), “Caesar” provided which oversees the others – practice with more than 50,000 photos. Caesar widespread, systematic torture. Each worked as an official Syrian military police agency has a central branch in Damascus, as forensic photographer. He took the pictures well as regional branches. between May 2011 and August 2013. They All intelligence services are well equipped show at least 6786 detainees who died inter in terms of staff, and prisons are located all alia from torture, either in detention, or over the country. Detention facilities are set after their transfer from prison to a military up as “interrogation prisons” where hospital. detainees are tortured regularly with various Amnesty International reported that techniques. According to survivor between September 2011 and December testimony, this includes beating with sticks, 2015, between 5000 and 13,000 people cables and plastic tubes; kicking heads and were secretly hanged in Saydnaya military genitals; electric shocks; sleep deprivation prison. and sexual assault. The Assad government Despite evidence and reports of torture, the maintains its claim that interrogations are a intelligence services enjoy absolute means to obtain “confessions.” In reality, impunity. It is not in the Syrian the system of torture does not serve to government’s interest to clarify the obtain information, but to terrorize and commission of crimes, nor to hold those humiliate the population. responsible accountable. In the near future, The Syrian government continues to deny it is highly unlikely that there will be any the occurrence of these crimes, and refuses domestic criminal prosecutions concerning to allow international experts or journalists torture by members of the Syrian to access intelligence service prisons. intelligence community. Testimony from torture survivors working with ECCHR corroborates research and documentation of international and Syrian human rights organizations.

3 Criminal complaints in Germany against high- ranking members of Syrian intelligence services and the military ECCHR has investigated cases of torture and accountable. This is true for torture in Syria, other human rights violations in Syria since as in other situations and countries like 2012. It has worked closely with survivors, Argentina, Bahrain, Sri Lanka and the US witnesses, lawyers and activists from Syria, detention center in Guantánamo. Grave as well as international partner organizations. human rights violations such as torture affect The direct perpetrators, and in particular the international community as a whole, and those overseeing these crimes, must be held must not go unpunished.

The German Code of Crimes against that courts in Syria address these crimes at International Law (CCAIL) makes the some point. criminal prosecution of international crimes committed in Syria possible in Germany. I) THE COMPLAINANTS CCAIL came into force in 2002 to bring German criminal law in line with The criminal complaints in Germany are international criminal law standards, in based on the testimony of people who were particular the Rome Statute of the ICC. detained in three different Syrian intelligence service branches (detention facilities), and The principle of universal jurisdiction the Saydnaya military prison. enshrined in CCAIL is the basis for German judicial authorities’ criminal prosecution of Testimony from survivors and witnesses, genocide, crimes against humanity and war official documents, and pictures of the crimes. Under CCAIL, the German Federal victims and crimes sites show that the Assad Public Prosecutor (Generalbundesanwalt) government is guilty of systematic crimes may investigate crimes committed outside of against humanity and war crimes. German territory. CCAIL allows As an example, excerpts of their testimonies proceedings concerning these crimes, follow: regardless of where they were committed, Complainant / Witness 1 who committed them, and against whom. Witness 1 (W1) is Christian and worked as a Criminal complaints are a first step towards lawyer in Damascus for 25 years. At the German courts initiating proceedings. They beginning of the revolution in 2011, Assad’s aim to direct the Federal Prosecutor’s General Intelligence Directorate (Branch attention to a specific situation or act that 255) targeted W1: he criticized the Assad constitutes an offence in the view of the government in media articles and on complainant. Facebook. Moreover, he opened his home The Office of the Federal Prosecutor has close to Damascus to people fleeing from the investigated the situation in Syria since 2011 Syrian army, and helped distribute UN relief in a “structural investigation:” it collects supplies. The intelligence service accused evidence and secures it for future use. So far, him of “providing support to terrorists.” In structural investigations have mostly April 2015, a member of the Military addressed crimes by low-ranking Intelligence arrested W1 and his wife at the perpetrators of non-state armed groups. Beirut border, and transferred him to branch ECCHR’s complaints aim to assist the Office 235 (known as the “branch of death”) in of the Federal Prosecutor in investigating Damascus. W1 was detained there for two high-ranking members of the Syrian military weeks. During his time in Branch 235, he intelligence services in order to obtain arrest was tortured with electric shocks, among warrants from the German Federal Supreme other methods. Court, as in the case of Jamil Hassan. W1 told ECCHR about the conditions during The legal steps in Germany are also intended his detention: “Many had skin diseases and to raise public awareness of human rights boils, but did not have the energy to chase violations in Syria, and increase pressure on away the rats that were everywhere and the international criminal justice community gnawed on their wounds. There was barely to respond. It remains essential, however, any food or water. People died around me.

Sometimes a corpse would lie in my cell for She told ECCHR, “Interrogations were three days before a guard would come and conducted in the hallway. During the first ten carry it away.” days of my imprisonment, I was regularly From his fourth day in detention on, W1 was taken out of my cell, and forced to stand in tortured daily with electric shocks until he the hall on one leg while I witnessed the lost consciousness. From the ninth day of torture of other inmates. The head of the interrogations onwards, he completely lost prison had people taken from their cells to his vision and sight. torture them with a hose, hard plastic tube or cable (“fira”).” Complainant / Witness 3 W5 has lived in Germany since 2015. Her Witness 3 (W3) lived in Damascus, where he husband still lives in northern Syria. Her organized and participated in demonstrations mother disappeared after her last visit to see against Assad. He was arrested twice for his W5 in prison. political activities. In August 2011, W3 was detained in Damascus for two weeks, and in Complainant / Witness 16 December 2011, he was detained and Witness 16 (W16) is Kurdish and was tortured in Branch 215. The second time he politically active even before the 2011 was detained for 28 days, during which he protests against Assad’s government. Air was brutally beaten and tortured with electric Force Intelligence officers arrested him in shocks several times. September 2011. He spent several weeks in W3 also had to witness the abuse of other various Air Force Intelligence detention inmates. He was detained with 30 other men centers, during which he was subjected to in a four by two meter cell. various modes of torture. In February 2012, W16 was transferred to Saydnaya military “During the interrogations, we were beaten prison, where he remained until May 2013. with a long cable or tube until we signed a ‘confession’,” he said in his testimony for the W16 told ECCHR about the inhumane criminal complaint. conditions in military prisons, as well as systematic abuse and torture. Daily life at W3 and his wife, who is also a complainant Saydnaya was strictly regimented. Guards in this case, have lived in Germany since woke detainees up between three and five in September 2015. the morning, and forced them to roll up their Complainant / Witness 5 blankets. Detainees then received their only meal of the day: a small piece of (usually Witness 5 (W5) was arrested near Damascus stale) bread, an egg, and some rice or in late July 2014. The reason: the activist potatoes. Detainees had to collect water from participated in peaceful demonstrations a slowly dripping tap. against the government. She was brought to the Kfar Sousa security quarter, and detained Complainant / Witness 24 for a month in Branch 227. Later, she was Witness 24 (W24) studied engineering in transferred to Branch 235, where she was Damascus. As an activist, he was involved in held for another month. She was tortured and the protest movement against Assad’s witnessed the torture of other inmates. W5 government from the beginning. In was punched and beaten with hard plastic November 2011, W24 was arrested with tubes.

three of his friends. He recognized one of More than 70 human rights organizations their corpses in the “Caesar” photographs. fought for the release of SCM members. The W24 spent four and a half months in various UN General Assembly and European Air Force Intelligence al- Parliament urged the Assad government to Investigative Branch prisons. release them. After three and a half years in prison, Darwish was released in August W24 described how when he arrived at the 2015. al-Mezzeh Branch – he was tortured for several hours with cables and wooden poles with nails on each end, resulting in a broken Anwar al-Bunni jaw. W24 did not receive medical care and Anwar al-Bunni is a well-known Syrian could not eat for weeks. To survive, he relied human rights lawyer and founding member on fellow detainees to pre-chew his food. His of Human Rights Association Syria (HRAS) injuries from repeated torture were so severe and the Syrian Center for Legal Studies and that he had to be operated on in Germany. Research (SCLSR), which defends Mazen Darwish journalists and political prisoners. Mazen Darwish is a Syrian lawyer, journalist Al-Bunni legally represented many and President of the Syrian Center for Media individuals and human rights organizations and Freedom of Speech (SCM), which he that were persecuted and arrested for their founded in Damascus in 2004. The political views in the context of the protests organization was forced to go underground, in Damascus from 2000 to 2001. He soon but continued to document numerous became a target for repression due to his violations of freedom of speech and freedom work. Like other members of his family, he of the press, report on journalists’ working was systematically threatened, persecuted conditions, and support journalists who were and defamed by government authorities. The targeted by the authorities. Damascus bar association suspended him several times. After the non-violent protests against Assad broke out in spring 2011, SCM began to In May 2006, al-Bunni and a number of other document the names of activists who were human rights activists were arrested after disappeared and killed. Reporters without they signed the so-called Beirut Damascus Borders honored Darwish as Journalist of the Declaration in which more than 274 Year in 2012. Lebanese and Syrian intellectuals called for a In February 2012, 14 SCM members, normalization of Syrian-Lebanese relations. While in custody, al-Bunni was tortured including Darwish and his wife, were several times. arrested during an intelligence service raid. In April 2007, al-Bunni was sentenced for the Based on his experience, Darwish recalled, “Torture wasn’t the exception, but rather a “distribution of seditious fake information” systematic method in Syrian government in proceedings that violated international standards of a fair trial. When sentenced, he prisons.” In an interview with the German had already spent a year in the notorious newspaper DIE ZEIT, he described the torture methods: electric shocks, suspending Adra prison, where he spent three more detainees by their hands, beatings and sleep years. deprivation.

“It is a miracle that I survived,” al-Bunni told Abdelfattah Qudsiyeh, deputy head of the ECCHR. He was not detained with other NSB, commanded the Military Intelligence political prisoners. One day, pro-Assad Service in Damascus until July 2012. inmates tried to throw him off a third-floor Qudsiyeh not only knew about torture and balcony. abuse in the above-mentioned branches, he Al-Bunni was released in May 2011 and now played a significant role in the system of lives in Berlin. He received the Front Line detention, humiliation and torture. Defenders Award and German Association Brigadier General Rqafiq Shehadeh, head of Judges’ Human Rights Award. In of the Military Intelligence Service December 2018, he won the Franco-German between 2012 and mid-March 2015, was also Prize for Human Rights. Assad’s special advisor on strategic issues and the Military Intelligence Service. He had II) THE SUSPECTS effective and direct control over the individuals who carried out torture. The criminal complaints submitted to the Examination and interrogation reports were Office of the German Federal Public forwarded directly to him. Prosecutor were filed against the following alleged perpetrators, among others: The same applies to Brigadier General Muhamad Mahalla, who succeeded Jamil Hassan, former head of the Syrian Brigadier General Shehadeh. In his position, Air Force Intelligence Service, for whom an Mahalla is directly involved in repressing arrest warrant was issued in 2018. He was a opponents of Assad’s government, and its close advisor to Assad and a member of his violent crackdown on civil society. inner circle. Hassan was the head of Air Force Intelligence from 2009 until July 2019, Lieutenant General Fahd Jassem al-Freij, upholding its reputation as the country’s Minister of Defense and deputy most brutal intelligence arm. commander-in-chief of the from July 2012 to January 2018. Due In Western media, Hassan has openly spoken to his high-ranking position within the Syrian in favor of merciless violence to quell military, al-Freij should be held accountable peaceful protests against the Assad for grave crimes committed under his government. As head of Air Force command, including in the Saydnaya Intelligence, he was jointly responsible for military prison and Tishreen military the government’s system of surveillance, hospital. detention, torture and killing thousands of Syrians. Major General Mohammed Dib Zeitoun, head of the General Intelligence Service. Ali Mamluk, head of the National Security On account of his position, he is responsible Bureau (NSB), was appointed by Assad in for systematic torture, crimes against 2012. As a head of the NSB, Mamluk is in humanity and war crimes committed in command of all four intelligence services, Branches 40, 252 and 285 of the General and therefore had effective control over the Intelligence Service in Damascus, as well as direct perpetrators. He served as head of the in Branch 322 in Aleppo. General Intelligence Service from 2005 to 2012.

4 The criminal complaint by the Caesar Files Group The “Caesar photos” present a unique that were followed, as well as the extent and insight into the Syrian government’s systematic nature of the torture and killing machinery of torture and killing under of detainees under Assad. Assad. In September 2017, the group The photographs were taken during Syrian around the former Syrian military police Military Police internal procedures. employee “Caesar” took legal action for the According to “Caesar,” new corpses were first time. Together with ECCHR, it filed a brought to military hospitals almost every criminal complaint with the German day. He said that forensic doctors, without Federal Prosecutor against senior officials carrying out an exam, would arbitrarily note working for three of the Syrian intelligence a cause of death, either “cardiac failure” or services, and the military police, concerning “breathing difficulties.” crimes against humanity and war crimes. A representative of the Caesar Files Group Various sources indicate that the bodies in provided the German Federal Prosecutor a the photographs bore three different set of the “Caesar photos” along with numbers: one for the branch or department associated metadata. where the deceased was last detained; a detainee number assigned by the relevant The photos were taken in Syria between intelligence services department; and a third May 2011 and August 2013. They were representing the total number of bodies seen subsequently obtained by the Caesar Files at the military hospital, written on a piece of Group and smuggled out of the country. cardboard and held up next to the body According to the group, more than half of while the photograph was taken. the 26,948 photos of detainees show people who died in Syrian government detention The vast majority of photographs show facilities. corpses of young men between the ages of 20 and 40. The images also show corpses of The metadata and accompanying criminal elderly people, at least one woman, and at complaint provide information about the least 100 children under the age of 18. locations and institutions involved, as well as torture methods and causes of death. Metadata attached to image files generally contains information about the camera The complaint is directed against the heads model used to take the photograph, and in of Syria’s National Security Bureau, the many cases, its serial number and a “hash Military Intelligence Service, the Air Force number.” This information is highly Intelligence Service, the General valuable to verify the authenticity of the Intelligence Directorate and the Military photos. Police. If the camera’s GPS system was enabled at The injuries visible on the corpses indicate the time a picture was taken, metadata can that (and how) detainees in Syrian military help determine where the photo was taken. intelligence and military police facilities Metadata includes the exact time the photo were tortured and killed. was taken, and the time it was saved on The large number of photos further another device. In cases where the demonstrates the bureaucratic procedures photographer is registered as the camera’s

user, the metadata can also help identify the photographer.

5 The path to justice leads through Europe – including Austria Austrian authorities should initiate as minors, were tortured or witnessed torture investigations into systematic torture under in intelligence service detention facilities. Assad using the principle of universal In this case, the accused include Ali Mamluk, jurisdiction. head of the National Security Bureau, as well In May 2018, four women and 12 men from as 23 other high-ranking Military Syria filed a criminal complaint with the Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence and prosecutor in Vienna, the first of its kind in General Intelligence Service officials. Austria. The complaint addressed torture in Torture and other crimes described in the Syrian intelligence service detention facilities complaint – including murder, serious bodily as a crime against humanity and war crime. harm, deprivation of liberty, and The 16 torture survivors filed the complaint in extermination of the civilian population – Austria – as in Germany – together with were committed between February 2011 and ECCHR, SCLSR and SCM. It was also January 2017 in 13 detention centers in supported by the Center for the Enforcement Damascus, Daraa, Hama and Aleppo. The of Human Rights International (CEHRI) from complaint is the first of its kind in Austria, and Vienna. compliments the four complaints submitted in The complainants, which include an Austrian Germany, as well as those in Sweden and citizen and several people who were detained Norway.

6 Sweden: Criminal complaint against Assad’s intelligence chiefs

Like Germany and Austria, Sweden can the spring of 2011. For this, they were play an important role in the fight against arrested and imprisoned in 15 detention impunity for torture in Syria due to its centers of four Syrian secret services in universal jurisdiction laws. In February Damascus, Aleppo, Raqqa and other cities 2019, nine torture survivors from Syria filed between February 2011 and June 2015. a complaint in Stockholm against high- The complainants were severely tortured ranking officials of the Assad government and witnessed the torture and deaths of for crimes against humanity. other prisoners. After their release, the The complainants participated in peaceful complainants left Syria, and now live in protests against the Assad government in Europe.

Their aim is for the Swedish judiciary to the Caesar Files Group and the Swedish investigate the complaint’s 25 named Civil Rights Defenders. CRD and ECCHR, intelligence officials, as well as those not whose legal research and analysis form the yet known by name, and issue arrest basis of the criminal complaint, have warrants based on Sweden’s penal code and worked closely with the complainants for a law on criminal responsibility for genocide, long time. crimes against humanity and war crimes. The Swedish court reacted swiftly: in spring Allegations include crimes against 2019, only a few weeks after the complaint humanity, war crimes, torture, well was submitted, four Syrian witnesses gave degrading treatment, rape, severe bodily testimony to the War Crimes Unit of the injury and illegal abduction. Swedish police. The men and women filed the complaint together with ECCHR, al-Bunni, Darwish,

7 Norway’s role in the fight against impunity In 2019, the dynamic of criminal apparatus for crimes against humanity and complaints, investigations and proceedings other crimes. The aim is for Norway to in other European countries led Syrian investigate and issue arrest warrants. torture survivors to seek justice in Norway The five complainants agreed, “With this as well. Together with ECCHR’s Syrian criminal complaint, we are taking a first partner organizations, as well as the step on the long path to justice. In Norway, Norwegian Helsinki Committee, five we have laid a foundation to address the torture survivors – a woman and four men – crimes in Syria – work that will involve submitted a criminal complaint in Oslo in many generations to come. We are November 2019. confident that the Norwegian judiciary will The complaint is directed against 17 high- help us seek justice.” ranking officials of Assad’s security

8 Sexual violence by Syrian intelligence services In June 2020, seven survivors of Assad’s Intelligence Service and National Security torture system submitted a criminal Bureau. ECCHR drafted the complaint with complaint to the German Federal Public support from its partner organizations Prosecutor in Karlsruhe. Their aim is for Syrian Women’s Network und Urnammu. It German authorities to finally prosecute complements the previous criminal sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) complaint against the same suspects that in Syrian detention centers for what it is: a ECCHR submitted in November 2017 (see crime against humanity. above). The complaint is directed against nine high- The complainants and witnesses, four ranking officials of the Syrian Air Force women and three men who were held in

four prisons run by the Syrian Air Force including also castration or forced nudity – Intelligence between April 2011 and were and are a part of the widespread and October 2013, survived or witnessed systematic attack on the civilian population. various forms of sexual violence, such as The Assad government targets persons rape or the threat of it, sexual harassment, because of their perceived sex or sexual electrical shocks targeting the genital area, orientation: females, males, LGBTQI or forced abortion. persons. The aim is to weaken the political These and other related crimes are not opposition and those directly affected, but isolated incidents. Sexual and gender-based also their families and Syrian society as a crimes in Syrian detention facilities – whole.

9 The case against transnational corporations – Lafarge By doing business in conflict regions, eight former Lafarge executives are also transnational corporations can escalate indicted, remains open against the company conflicts and contribute to grave human on all charges. rights violations. ECCHR and its French partner organization An extensive war economy has evolved Sherpa have appealed the decision on since the beginning of the armed conflict in Lafarge’s alleged complicity in crimes Syria, involving nearly all parties to the against humanity. The French Supreme conflict. This involves trade in weapons, Court will then address fundamental raw materials and other goods of interest to questions of transnational corporations’ parties in the conflict, states and responsibility. corporations. Many actors profit from the Proceedings against Lafarge followed, situation: local firms, arms and defense among other things, a criminal complaint by companies in various countries, and large eleven former Syrian employees, ECCHR transnational corporations like the French and Sherpa in November 2016. cement supplier Lafarge and its subsidiary Lafarge Cement Syria (LCS). The allegations: through their business relations with armed groups like IS, Lafarge The Lafarge/Syria case remains a milestone and its Syrian subsidiary financed terrorism in the fight against corporate impunity even and was complicit in crimes against though French courts revoked the humanity. indictment for complicity in crimes against humanity in November 2019. The The criminal complaint focuses on events at Investigation Chamber of the Paris Court of company’s cement factory in Jalabiya, in Appeals confirmed the charges against the northern Syria between al-Raqqa and multinational for deliberately endangering Manbij, between 2012 and 2014. There is the lives of its Syrian subsidiary workers no doubt that IS committed grave crimes and for financing terrorism in relation to against the civilian population during that large money transfers allegedly made to the time. Islamic State. The judicial inquiry, in which

ECCHR and Sherpa argue that Lafarge and withdrew non-Syrian staff from its factory its Syrian subsidiary acted as accomplices in Jalabiya in 2012, while continuing to to these crimes by financing IS in various employ Syrian employees there. ways. Lafarge is believed to have purchased ECCHR and Sherpa’s information indicates commodities like oil and pozzolans from IS, that the French company failed to provide and to have paid the Islamic State up to security for its Syrian staff. Violent conflict millions of Euros to continue operations. near the factory intensified continuously ECCHR and Sherpa also accuse Lafarge from 2012 on, however Lafarge did not and its subsidiary of negligence in have an evacuation plan in place when IS endangering their employees’ lives and attacked and took over the factory on 19 having them work in conditions September 2014. Local staff were left to incompatible with human dignity. LCS flee completely on their own.

10 Outlook In order to achieve accountability for the Accountability can also help prevent future systematic and widespread human rights conflicts, and develop the rule of law and violations in Syria, further legal democratic principles after the war in Syria interventions must follow against the Assad ends. government, transnational corporations, Further fields of possible legal intervention third states that intervened in the conflict, as may include exports of conventional well as organizations such as IS. weapons, other armaments and surveillance Without justice for those affected by the technology to parties of the conflict, as well crimes committed in Syria, there is no as targeted sexualized violence against prospect for a political solution. Justice for women. human rights crimes is essential for affected individuals.

“Without justice, there cannot be peace in Syria.” – Mazen Darwish, Syrian torture survivor, journalist and lawyer

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IMPRINT European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) e.V. www.ecchr.eu Last updated: March 2021