Guerre Civile en Syrie

The Syrian regime is reportedly using rape as a tool of war against opposition forces. Human rights monitors have documented cases of sexual violence perpetrated by regime security forces against both men and women, however, first-person testimonies have been hard to come by. NOW sat down with a Syrian refugee in Lebanon who asked to be called Shero and who claims that he and his friend Meshaal were raped by regime forces.

The two young men are activist from the Monastery of Saint Moses the Abyssinian, a monastic community of Syriac Catholics north of Damascus. They worked closely with Father Paolo Dall’ Oglio, the Roman Catholic priest who was recently expelled from Syria for criticizing the regime’s violence.

Why were you and Meshaal detained?

Shero: We worked closely with father Paolo on humanitarian issues relating to the Syrian crisis. We also worked closely with caricaturist Ali Ferzat. Meshaal is Kurdish and I am half Kurdish, half Christian, and we both called for regime change. The regime was not happy with our activities.

But one need not be protesting to be detained these days; many are being detained because of personal vendettas and matters of settling scores. In return for money, security forces detain anyone. Meshaal is an activist, but security forces detained him following a quarrel he had with a pro-regime thug.

He was both tortured and sexually harassed, but he is not ready to speak about the latter. As for torture, he was severely beaten up; they tied him in the “chicken position” and to a tire. The tire had “God is not here and Mohammed is on vacation” written on it. They would mock him, saying, “Where is your khoday to help you now?” [Khoday means “God” in Kurdish.] They forced him to confess to crimes he had not committed. He was transferred to the Adra Prison without a court hearing. I later bribed the judge so he would release him on bail.

How does bribery work with the regime?

Shero: Just as the security forces are detaining Syrians for money, they are also releasing them for money. I bribed the attorney general to visit Meshaal in prison, then bribed the policeman to let me enter.

How were you detained?

Shero: The security forces set a trap for me. I was approached by civilians. They attacked me in daylight and no one came to help me. I screamed “Police!” and they answered, “We are the police, you idiot.” They took me into the police station, and the officer there told them I had no charges on me, but they insisted that I had to be detained. The policeman told me that he could no longer help me.

When and how were you sexually harassed?

Shero: The same night, I was transferred to the crime department. At the entrance I saw a half-naked woman crying. As I was being interrogated, one officer came in and raped me, then another, then a third. The three raped me as the colonel and his assistant laughed. I was screaming, and no one came to my aid. I lost consciousness at a point, and then woke up to their kicking. One asked the other if I had died or not. The police there tried to harass me too. I managed to get some outside help, and so I was released and so was Meshaal.

Is rape a common tool used by regime forces?

Shero: Security forces very often resort to sexual violence to terrorize the people, even before the uprising. However, today the public is hearing more of it because of the media attention. There have been many cases of rape during the uprising, but people are afraid to speak up.

Why is sexual abuse seldom reported?

Shero: We live in a patriarchal society; it does not encourage us to talk about it because of fear and shame. Documenting such cases, especially against women, is extremely difficult. Societies are conservative and a family's honor is tied to the virtue of women. Two friends of mine, girls, were raped, but they would not consider speaking up. One of them is Christian and she was raped because she was a Christian protesting.

Why did you decide to speak up?

Shero: I want to speak up so the rest can find the courage to. I want the world to know that the revolution is not sectarian; Christians along with Muslims and Kurds are taking to the streets. The uprising is against the regime, and the regime is practicing violence against all those who defy it, whatever sect they belong to.

I believe that the regime is full of psychopaths. They have no cause and no values. They sexually harass to humiliate the protesters as a price for challenging the system and to frighten them against taking to the streets again. They want to break the people. It is a sign of a crumbling regime. But Meshaal and I defied them; we continued with our activism.

This interview has been condensed and edited for length

A panel of experts from the UN Human Rights Council dispatched to investigate human rights abuses in Syria issued a very disturbing report yesterday. Mass atrocities, sexual violence, crimes against children and extra-judicial killings are described in chilling detail.

Among the most high profile points of inquiry was the May 25 massacre of civilians in the Syrian town of Houla. The commission concluded that a massacre did infact occur and that the Syrian government, its affiliated armed groups, and the rebels were responsible for crimes against humanity.

While unable to determine the exact perpetrators of the deliberate killing of civilians in Houla, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria found “that forces loyal to the Government were likely to have been responsible for many of the deaths”.

The Commission was never able to access Syria. But it conducted over 1,000 interviews with those who have fled Syria. Among those, forty interviewees asked specifically about Houla gave testimony with similar details, describing government and militia attacks.

The only dissent regarding the identity of those responsible for Houla came from the two witnesses given in a report on the incident issued by the Syrian government. The Commission was denied permission to interview those two witnesses.

The findings of the Houla investigation are only a small part though of a wrenching description of the horrors civilians face daily in Syria. The Commission examines in detail the various other abuses committed against civilians across the country. Particularly jarring are the annexes describing widespread violence and mistreatment against women and children.

Statistics leap out like the 125 children killed, mostly boys, since February in the ongoing fighting. Children also described “having been beaten, whipped with electrical cables, burned with cigarettes and subjected to electrical shocks to the genitals”:

12. One 15 year old boy said he was arrested in March by security and plain clothes officers after protesting, and taken to a Political Security office in Dara’a in March. He stated, “There were lots of young men, children and adolescents and also older people. I was standing and the officer stood in front of me and hit me across the face. They put electricity on my temples and my stomach … They asked us, ‘Where are the weapons!’ … They used lots of electricity. It felt like five hours and went on until morning, I think. There were kids as young as 10 with me in the cell …” He was released five days later only after signing a confession “… stating that we were terrible boys and had done many things wrong…I also had to sign a blank paper.”

Sexual violence against women and men alike are captured by the findings. The result is a disturbing picture of pervasive fear among civilians of being the next victim, a prime motivator for many interviewed women to have fled Syria in the first place, and an encouragement among the armed forces to use rape as a weapon of intimidation:

16. Two defectors stated that soldiers perpetrated rape during house searches in Zabadani in February 2012. One stated he was part of a contingent of soldiers that entered a house in order to loot it. When inside the house, the soldiers reportedly tied up the men and began to assault a 15-year-old girl. The interviewee, having been beaten by his colleagues, remained outside the house while the rape took place. Another defector stated that he heard his senior officers boasting about raping women during the February raid on Zabadani.

No reports came to the Commission reporting sexual violence being used by the opposition, but the lack of access to those still within Syria may be preventing stories from reaching the Commissioners.

The armed opposition does not come out with its hands clean. In particular, the Commission reported a widespread practice of extrajudicial killing of those aligned with the government by rebel fighters, counter to international norms:

49. The commission interviewed 10 FSA soldiers who had never heard of IHL or IHRL. One FSA fighter told the commission:

“We do not leave them alone until we kill them. Either they finish us or we finish them. We do not let them go and continue to kill people. We do not take prisoners, no one comes out alive. If he manages to escape he will come back to kill me.”

50. Another FSA fighter interviewed stated that when senior military officers are captured they are exchanged for detained members of anti-Government armed groups. However, if the FSA captures an ordinary officer or soldier, “they are interrogated and submitted to trial where Sharia law is applied”. The interviewee provided information on the composition and functioning of such a court in Tal Rifat. Its members are apparently educated and from diverse backgrounds. For example, some are lawyers, religious leaders and others known for their integrity. The soldier had never heard of IHL and related his view that, “[IHL] is not better than Sharia law where everyone is punished for what he has done by the same means, an eye for an eye”.

All told, the situation on the ground in Syria is ugly, and won’t be getting prettier anytime soon. The withdrawal of the UN Supervisory Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) will remove a key set of eyes and ears within Syria’s borders, with the insertion of a new political office unlikely to make up the difference.

With the Syrian government continuing to obstruct the Commission from conducting interviews with full freedom of movement, there will likely continue to be crimes against humanity that go unreported. The full extent of the terror in Syria may not be known until after the shooting has stopped, whenever that may be.