Syria Feature: The Military's "Crimes Against Humanity" in Tel Kalakh (Amnesty International)

Protest in Tel Kalakh, 10 June 2011Amnesty International has issued a report on the Syrian military's operations in mid-May in Tel Kalakh, a town in the west near the Lebanese border: "When taken in the context of other crimes and human rights violations elsewhere in Syria, [these] amount to crimes against humanity."

As part of the wave of protests sweeping the Middle East and North Africa region in recent months, relatively small demonstrations in Syria in February developed into widespread mass protests in the country from mid-March.

These spread across the country after the security forces used excessive force to suppress what were largely peaceful demonstrations. On 14 May, a devastating security operation began in Tell Kalakh, a town in the western governorate of Homs near the border with Lebanon. According to Amnesty International’s findings, scores of men were arbitrarily arrested and tortured, including people already wounded, and at least nine died in custody. The security operation prompted thousands of people to flee to Lebanon, some of whom were shot at as they fled.

The security operation began the day after a large demonstration in the town’s central Abu Arab Square called for the downfall of the regime. During the protest, 12 members of the ruling Ba’th Party announced their resignation as junior officials to a cheering crowd.

Protests had begun in Tell Kalakh in late March 2011 after security forces violently suppressed demonstrations in the southern city of Dera’a. The Tell Kalakh protests initially called for the release of some 250 local people believed to be detained, most of them incommunicado, by Air Force Security, one of several security forces operating in Syria. Air Force Security had reportedly arrested them in batches in late 2009 or early 2010, mainly on suspicion of smuggling goods to and from Lebanon.

In April and May 2011, according to reports, around 70 detainees held by Air Force Security for months without charge were released.

However, the protests in Tell Kalakh continued and began to call for the downfall of the regime. They were largely peaceful apart from one incident, as far as Amnesty International is aware. The incident happened on 27 April after Sheikh Osama al-Akkary, an influential local cleric who preaches at a mosque in Tell Kalakh, was arrested at the Immigration and Passports Directorate in the city of Homs when he was seeking to renew his passport. His arrest sparked violent clashes in Tell Kalakh between his supporters and security forces, resulting in the deaths of two members of the security forces. Amnesty International has not been able to establish whether the cleric’s supporters had firearms nor whether the subsequent security operation in Tell Kalakh was linked to the two deaths.

Syria has closed its borders to organizations such as Amnesty International as well as to international journalists and other independent observers. A UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights team assigned by the UN Human Rights Council on 29 April 2011 to investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law and crimes committed against civilians in Syria has also not been able to visit the country. To research reports of abuses in Tell Kalakh, Amnesty International visited Lebanon between 20 May and 8 June and spent the majority of this time in the border area with Syria, where it conducted interviews in person with Tell Kalakh residents who had fled across the border. It also interviewed residents by phone later in June, speaking to more than 50 people in total. Those interviewed included individuals who said they had been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, relatives of people killed, and witnesses to abuses.

On the basis of this and other research, Amnesty International considers that the Syrian army and security forces committed crimes and other violations during the security operation in Tell Kalakh that, when taken in the context of other crimes and human rights violations elsewhere in Syria, amount to crimes against humanity. This is because they appear to be part of a widespread, as well as systematic, attack against the civilian population involving multiple commission of a range of crimes against a multiplicity of victims in an organized manner and pursuant to a state policy to commit such an attack. These crimes include murder, torture, arbitrary detention and other severe deprivation of liberty, and other inhumane acts committed intentionally to cause great suffering or serious damage to mental or physical health. Most of the crimes described in this report would fall within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court provided that the UN Security Council decides to refer the situation to the Court’s Prosecutor.

As is the case with documenting human rights violations in other parts in Syria, people who speak to international human rights organizations risk severe repercussions. Amnesty International therefore exercises extreme caution while collecting and publicizing information on Syria, and, where necessary in this report, does not name or give any other information that may identify interviewees or put people at risk.

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