For years, UN human rights our bodies have been documenting, monitoring and publishing studies on abuses, and bringing Syria’s dire human rights document to the world’s consideration.
The autumn of Bashar al Assad in December 2024 was largely greeted with euphoria by the Syrian individuals, however photos of a whole bunch of individuals pouring into the infamous Sednaya Jail, desperately looking for associates or kin, and testimony from former prisoners, recounting the sadism and torture they endured, was a vivid reminder of the atrocities dedicated underneath the previous regime.
Since 2016, the Worldwide Neutral and Impartial Mechanism (IIIM), has been amassing an enormous 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.
Nevertheless, every little thing modified after the fast collapse of the regime. Simply days later the top of the IIIM, Robert Petit, was capable of journey to Syria the place he met members of the de facto authorities. Throughout this historic go to, he made some extent of emphasizing the significance of preserving proof earlier than it is misplaced ceaselessly.
UN Information interviewed Mr. Petit from his workplaces in Geneva and started 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 lots 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 can be absolutely 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 have been shocked on the pace with which the regime crumbled, though in hindsight we must always have realized that the foundations have been fully eroding for years.
We needed to shortly begin enthusiastic about find out how to handle this new state of affairs: for the primary time in eight years, we have now the prospect to essentially fulfill our mandate.
The principle goal of the go to was to begin partaking diplomatically and clarify to the brand new authorities what our function 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 purpose to imagine that we’ll not be granted permission. I believe it is a matter of processes reasonably than willingness, and we’re hoping that inside days we’ll get that permission after which we’ll deploy as quickly as we are able to.
© IIIM Syria
Paperwork are piled up at a court docket home in Damascus, Syria, which was visited by the top of the IIIM, Robert Petit.
UN Information: How exhausting was it to gather proof in the course of the years that you just have been denied entry to the nation?
Robert Petit: Syrian civil society and Syrians basically have, since March 2011, been the perfect documenters of their very own victimization. They gathered an unlimited amount of proof of crimes, usually at nice danger the price of their very own lives.
Yearly since we have 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 gathered over 284 terabytes of information over time to construct instances and help 16 totally different jurisdictions in prosecuting, investigating and prosecuting their very own instances.
Now we probably have entry to a wealth of contemporary 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 help 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 have now been constructing instances and we hope to construct a wealth of understanding of the state of affairs and the proof that would help these instances.
On the identical time, we have been supporting 16 jurisdictions everywhere in the world prosecuting these instances, and I am very pleased to say that we have now been capable of help over nearly 250 of these investigations and prosecutions and can proceed to take action.
UN Information: Throughout your journey you stated 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 can be lots of proof, however issues go lacking, they get destroyed and disappear. So, there’s a time situation.
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 have been aware of the significance of preserving all this proof. The very fact is that they’ve been in management for barely six weeks, so there are clearly lots of competing priorities.
I believe the state of affairs in Damascus is comparatively good in that lots of the websites, the primary ones at the least, are secured. Exterior of Damascus, I believe the state of affairs is much more fluid and possibly worse.
UN Information: When Volker Türk, the UN Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights, visited Syria in January he known as for truthful, neutral justice within the wake of the top of the Assad regime. However he additionally stated that the extent of atrocity crimes “beggars perception”. Do you personally suppose that justice reasonably than revenge, in a spot the place individuals have been so badly brutalized, is feasible or probably?
Robert Petit: That is for the Syrians to reply themselves and hopefully be heard and supported in what they may outline as justice for them and for what they’ve suffered.
If individuals are given the hope that there can 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 believe it’s doable. I’ve labored in sufficient of those conditions to know that a wide range of issues might be executed to deal with these very complicated conditions, nevertheless it have to be Syria-led, and so they should have the help of the worldwide neighborhood.
UN Information: Do you envisage that prison trials would happen in Syria at a nationwide degree or at a global degree, 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 a complete 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, have to 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 strive 1.2 million perpetrators over a decade. Others, like Cambodia, merely attempt to bury the previous, and fake it by no means occurred.
The very best answer is the one which Syrians will determine for themselves.
