For years, UN human rights our bodies have been documenting, monitoring and publishing stories 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 tons of 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 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 finally held accountable.
Within the eight years since, persistently denied entry to Syria, they’ve needed to work from exterior the nation.
Nonetheless, every little thing modified after the speedy collapse of the regime. Simply days later the top 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 some extent of emphasizing the significance of preserving proof earlier than it is misplaced perpetually.
UN Information interviewed Mr. Petit from his places of work 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 nervousness, and a variety of unhappiness from the households of prisoners who had been killed.
However there was undoubtedly a way of change throughout the board. It is my private hope that the aspirations of Syrians will likely be totally realized with the assistance of the worldwide group.
UN Information: What was the aim of your go to, and was it profitable?
Robert Petit: As with a lot 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 fascinated by the best way to deal with this new state of affairs: for the primary time in eight years, we have now the possibility to essentially fulfill our mandate.
The primary function of the go to was to start out participating diplomatically and clarify to the brand new authorities what our position is and what we want 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 consider that we are going to not be granted permission. I feel it is a matter of processes slightly 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 top of the IIIM, Robert Petit.
UN Information: How exhausting was it to gather proof in the course of the years that you simply 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 amassed an infinite amount of proof of crimes, typically 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 amassed over 284 terabytes of information through the years to construct instances and help 16 completely 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: In the course of the Assad years, although, you had no assure that anybody could be dropped at 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 all the time a hope that there was going to be some type 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 might 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 in a position to help 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 will likely be a variety of proof, however issues go lacking, they get destroyed and disappear. So, there’s a time subject.
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 acutely 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 state of affairs in Damascus is comparatively good in that a variety of the websites, the principle ones not less than, are secured. Exterior of Damascus, I feel 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 referred to as for truthful, 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 slightly than revenge, in a spot the place individuals have been so badly brutalized, is feasible or doubtless?
Robert Petit: That is for the Syrians to reply themselves and hopefully be heard and supported in what they are going to outline as justice for them and for what they’ve suffered.
If individuals are given the hope that there will likely be in place a system that can deal pretty and transparently with not less than these most accountable for the atrocities, it should give them hope and endurance.
I feel it’s doable. I’ve labored in sufficient of those conditions to know that a wide range of issues will be executed to deal with these very advanced conditions, but it surely should be Syria-led, and so they should have the help of the worldwide group.
UN Information: Do you envisage that prison trials would happen in Syria at a nationwide stage or at a world stage, for instance on the Worldwide Felony Courtroom?
Robert Petit: Once more, it should depend 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.
For my part, these most accountable, the architects of the system, should be held criminally accountability. For everybody else, the methods a post-conflict society tackles the problem 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 faux it by no means occurred.
The very best answer is the one which Syrians will determine for themselves.
