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 individuals, however pictures of a whole bunch of individuals pouring into the infamous Sednaya Jail, desperately trying to find pals or family, 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 Unbiased 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, constantly denied entry to Syria, they’ve needed to work from exterior the nation.
Nevertheless, every part modified after the fast collapse of the regime. Simply days later the pinnacle 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 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 quite a lot 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 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 velocity with which the regime crumbled, though in hindsight we should always have realized that the foundations have been utterly eroding for years.
We needed to rapidly begin excited about learn how to handle this new scenario: for the primary time in eight years, we now have 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 feel it is a matter of processes moderately 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 are able to.
© 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 through the years that you just have 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 unlimited 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 collected over 284 terabytes of knowledge 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 recent proof of crimes, and we’re hoping to have the ability to exploit that chance very quickly.
UN Information: Throughout the Assad years, although, you had no assure that anybody could 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 form of tribunal, or complete justice for the crimes in Syria. In anticipation of that, we now have been constructing instances and we hope to construct a wealth of understanding of the scenario and the proof that might help these instances.
On the identical time, we have been supporting 16 jurisdictions all around the world prosecuting these instances, and I am very blissful to say that we now have 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 will likely be quite a lot of proof, however issues go lacking, they get destroyed and disappear. So, there’s a time problem.
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 quite a lot of competing priorities.
I feel the scenario in Damascus is comparatively good in that quite a lot of the websites, the primary ones not less than, are secured. Exterior of Damascus, I feel the scenario 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 assume that justice moderately than revenge, in a spot the place individuals have been so badly brutalized, is feasible or possible?
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 will likely be in place a system that can deal pretty and transparently with not less than these most accountable for the atrocities, it’s going to give them hope and endurance.
I feel it’s potential. I’ve labored in sufficient of those conditions to know that quite a lot of issues may be achieved to handle these very advanced conditions, but it surely have to be Syria-led, they usually should have the help of the worldwide neighborhood.
UN Information: Do you envisage that felony trials would happen in Syria at a nationwide stage or at a global stage, for instance on the Worldwide Legal Courtroom?
Robert Petit: Once more, it’s going to rely on 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 unbelievable 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 problem 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.
The most effective answer is the one which Syrians will resolve for themselves.
