For years, UN human rights our bodies have been documenting, monitoring and publishing studies on abuses, and bringing Syria’s dire human rights report to the world’s consideration.
The autumn of Bashar al Assad in December 2024 was largely greeted with euphoria by the Syrian folks, however photos of tons of of individuals pouring into the infamous Sednaya Jail, desperately looking for mates or relations, and testimony from former prisoners, recounting the sadism and torture they endured, was a vivid reminder of the atrocities dedicated below the previous regime.
Since 2016, the Worldwide Neutral and Impartial Mechanism (IIIM), has been amassing an unlimited assortment of proof, aiming to make sure that these accountable are ultimately held accountable.
Within the eight years since, persistently denied entry to Syria, they’ve needed to work from outdoors the nation.
Nonetheless, the whole lot modified after the fast collapse of the regime. Simply days later the pinnacle of the IIIM, Robert Petit, was in a position to journey to Syria the place he met members of the de facto authorities. Throughout this historic go to, he made a degree of emphasizing the significance of preserving proof earlier than it is misplaced without end.
UN Information interviewed Mr. Petit from his workplaces in Geneva and commenced by asking him to explain the reactions of the Syrians he met throughout his go to.
This interview has been edited for readability and size.
Robert Petit: It was a sobering and emotional time. I skilled a mixture of hope and pleasure, in addition to worry and anxiousness, and a variety of unhappiness from the households of prisoners who had been killed.
However there was positively a way of change throughout the board. It is my private hope that the aspirations of Syrians shall be totally realized with the assistance of the worldwide neighborhood.
UN Information: What was the aim of your go to, and was it profitable?
Robert Petit: As with many of the world, we had been shocked on the velocity with which the regime crumbled, though in hindsight we should always have realized that the foundations had been fully eroding for years.
We needed to shortly begin interested by tackle this new scenario: for the primary time in eight years, we’ve got the possibility to actually fulfill our mandate.
The principle goal of the go to was to start out partaking diplomatically and clarify to the brand new authorities what our position is and what we wish to do and get permission to take action. We discovered them to be receptive.
We formally requested permission to ship groups to work and discharge our mandate in Syria. That was again on December 21. We’re nonetheless ready for the reply. I’ve no cause to imagine that we are going to not be granted permission. I feel it is a matter of processes quite than willingness, and we’re hoping that inside days we are going to get that permission after which we are going to deploy as quickly as we will.
© IIIM Syria
Paperwork are piled up at a courtroom home in Damascus, Syria, which was visited by the pinnacle of the IIIM, Robert Petit.
UN Information: How onerous was it to gather proof throughout the years that you just had been denied entry to the nation?
Robert Petit: Syrian civil society and Syrians typically have, since March 2011, been the most effective documenters of their very own victimization. They collected an infinite amount of proof of crimes, usually at nice threat the price of their very own lives.
Yearly since we had been created, we tried to entry Syria. We couldn’t get permission, however we developed shut relationships with a few of these civil society actors, media stakeholders and people who collected credible proof, as did different establishments.
We collected over 284 terabytes of information over time to construct instances and assist 16 totally different jurisdictions in prosecuting, investigating and prosecuting their very own instances.
Now we doubtlessly have entry to a wealth of recent proof of crimes, and we’re hoping to have the ability to exploit that chance very quickly.
UN Information: Through the Assad years, although, you had no assure that anybody can be delivered to justice.
Robert Petit: Our mandate has been very clear from the start: put together instances to assist present and future jurisdiction. And that is what we have been doing. There was at all times a hope that there was going to be some sort of tribunal, or complete justice for the crimes in Syria. In anticipation of that, we’ve got been constructing instances and we hope to construct a wealth of understanding of the scenario and the proof that might assist these instances.
On the similar time, we have been supporting 16 jurisdictions everywhere in the world prosecuting these instances, and I am very glad to say that we’ve got been in a position to assist over virtually 250 of these investigations and prosecutions and can proceed to take action.
UN Information: Throughout your journey you mentioned there is a small window of alternative to safe websites and the fabric they maintain. Why?
Robert Petit: Syria’s state equipment functioned for years, so there shall be a variety of proof, however issues go lacking, they get destroyed and disappear. So, there’s a time concern.
UN Information: Are the de facto authorities in Syria serving to you to safe proof?
Robert Petit: We had messaging from the caretaker authorities that they had been aware of the significance of preserving all this proof. The actual fact is that they’ve been in management for barely six weeks, so there are clearly a variety of competing priorities.
I feel the scenario in Damascus is comparatively good in that a variety of the websites, the primary ones at the least, are secured. Exterior of Damascus, I feel the scenario is much more fluid and doubtless worse.
UN Information: When Volker Türk, the UN Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights, visited Syria in January he referred to as for honest, neutral justice within the wake of the tip of the Assad regime. However he additionally mentioned that the extent of atrocity crimes “beggars perception”. Do you personally assume that justice quite than revenge, in a spot the place folks have been so badly brutalized, is feasible or seemingly?
Robert Petit: That is for the Syrians to reply themselves and hopefully be heard and supported in what they’ll outline as justice for them and for what they’ve suffered.
If individuals are given the hope that there shall be in place a system that may deal pretty and transparently with at the least these most liable for the atrocities, it should give them hope and persistence.
I feel it’s doable. I’ve labored in sufficient of those conditions to know that a wide range of issues might be completed to handle these very advanced conditions, nevertheless it should be Syria-led, they usually will need to have the assist of the worldwide neighborhood.
UN Information: Do you envisage that legal trials would happen in Syria at a nationwide stage or at a global stage, for instance on the Worldwide Prison Courtroom?
Robert Petit: Once more, it should rely upon what Syrians need. You are speaking about actually 1000’s of perpetrators, and an entire state equipment devoted to the fee of mass atrocities. It’s an unimaginable problem to outline what accountability means.
In my view, these most accountable, the architects of the system, should be held criminally accountability. For everybody else, the methods a post-conflict society tackles the difficulty varies.
Rwanda, for instance, tried to make use of conventional types of dispute decision to attempt 1.2 million perpetrators over a decade. Others, like Cambodia, merely attempt to bury the previous, and fake it by no means occurred.
One of the best resolution is the one which Syrians will resolve for themselves.
