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Syrian Soldiers Repel ISIL Offensive in Southeastern Aleppo
http://bit.ly/2jYb5j5
"Heavy death toll reported."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/world-news/syria-amnesty-international-mass-hangings?utm_content=buffer4980c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Hearsay Extrapolated
https://t.co/2G2azE1H8D
"Amnesty claims mass executions in Syria - provides no proof."
Amnesty - The Latest War Propaganda on Syria
https://twitter.com/timand2037/status/829373604915712000
"The US State Dept, Amnesty and Human Rights Watch regularly swap officials.
Much of the substance if not all the details of the Amnesty report was provided in last year's report of the UN Human Rights Council "Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Deaths in Detention in the Syrian Arab Republic".
http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/CoISyria/A-HRC-31-CRP1...
Attempts to whitewash the horrific abuses of human rights by all sides in the Syrian conflict (but overwhelmingly by the state apparatus of the Assad Gov't) are pathetic and an affront to all.
The Farce That Is Amnesty International's 'Human Slaughterhouse' Study
https://t.co/a8M0J9vcJP
"It is, quite literally, fake news gone viral..."
The above article in summary:
1. We have found one of the rebel soldiers that provided eye-witness testimony to Amnesty - and he is ALIVE! So therefore Assad did not kill everyone in his prisons. Which leads us to conslude that Assad didn't kill anyone in his prisons.
(I suppose we should lament that such rigorous rules of evidence were not in force at Nuremberg.)
2. The agencies that provided this information (Amnesty and Syrian Network for Human Rights) are all stooges of the west. Except when they criticize the west (see #4, below.)
3. The Amnesty report includes aerial photographs. The US used aerial photos in making the case for WMD case in Iraq. Therefore this too is false.
4. At the very same time, Amnesty is denouncing Trump for his Muslim ban executive order. This shows how political they are.
How pathetic is that?
AI Admits "Saydnaya' Report Fabricated Entirely in UK
https://t.co/DM7VmI2Xbs
As I said, I'll give the benefit of the doubt to AI. This is just more reason to do so.
Yeah. Its exactly the same argument that Assad apologists use for criticizing the White Helmets humanitarian organization that won last years global Right Livelihoods Award (known popularly as the 'Alternative Nobel Prize').
First the agency is denied access to Gov't controlled areas because it refuses to comply with state restrictions. And then it is denounced by the same authorities for only working behind rebel lines. So lame.
IMO, AI has changed character over the past 15 years. They used to talk about American aggression in a much more straightforward way. Sort of like the Guardian. I used to think of them as more neutral, but they have been used, willingly or no, to bolster the case for the second Iraq invasion, Afghanistan, Libya, etc as NDPP's twitter link above mentions.
Producing 3d models of prisons to recreate the horror of Syria prisons for Western audiences is sketchy as hell.
RE: governments refusing access during conflicts, well, Syria isn't the only government that has expressed concern that western humanitarian organizations are fronts for western government interests. And we have seen it in effect the other way around as well - US intelligence or covert operatives posing as MSF staff in combat zones during the first Iraq war.
Amnesty International is telling me that the 13,000 people (allegedly, but I am prepared to believe it is true) executed in Syrian prisions since 2011 is an affront against human rights, and it must END NOW. Their report urges the UN and the international community to use all their influence to get Syria to comply with international law. Personally I'm not optimistic more influencing from western governments will do the trick.
Sherpa-finn says:
"Attempts to whitewash the horrific abuses of human rights by all sides in the Syrian conflict (but overwhelmingly by the state apparatus of the Assad Gov't) are pathetic and an affront to all."
Talking about AI's reliability, trustworthiness or their choices in which human rights abuses in the world deserve their "coverage" is a separate topic from the horrific abuses of human rights occuring in Syria, or elsewhere. To discuss the former isn't dismissing the latter.
Syrian security forces are fighting against people who car bomb markets and want to enforce a Islamic system that would be at least as bad as the Saudi people have to endure living under. I have no idea how many suspected jihadists have been killed but the number would certainly be high. However I don't for a minute think that a report based on accusations by your enemies constitutes anything except recycled rumours being used as propaganda.
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.ca/2017/02/amnesty-international-admits-sy...
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde24/5415/2017/en/
Actually Josh I read that already. It is not proof it is hearsay spoken by people who hate the Syrian government. I have no doubt that people have been tortured and killed for being suspected jihadists. However this story has the stench of babies in incubators with the same eye witness accounts or maybe the vaigra fueled rape squads in Libya. I refuse to believe stories that sound unbelievable without actual proof.
And what would that proof consist of exactly? I guess verbal reports of the Holocaust and the Killing Fields wouldn't have satisfied you. Unlike the examples you cite, AI doesn't have an axe to grind.
2. METHODOLOGY
The research for this report took place between December 2015 and December 2016. Amnesty International interviewed 31 men who were detained at Saydnaya (also spelt Sednaya) between 2011 and 2015.1 Of these, 20 were detained in the prison’s “red building”: five who were part of the Syrian military at the time of their arrest and 15 who were civilians. The remaining 11 were detained in the prison’s “white building”, including nine who were part of the Syrian military at the time of arrest and two who were civilians. As explained below, the majority of those detained in the red building of Saydnaya since 2011 are civilians, and the majority of those detained in the white building are soldiers or officers in the Syrian military.2
Amnesty International also interviewed four prison officials or guards who previously worked at Saydnaya; three former judges, one of whom served in the Military Court in the al-Mezzeh neighbourhood of Damascus;3 three doctors who worked at Tishreen Military Hospital; four Syrian lawyers; 17 international and national experts on detention in Syria, such as investigators, analysts and monitors; and 22 family members of people who were or still are believed to be detained at Saydnaya. The majority of these interviews took place in person in southern Turkey. The remaining interviews were conducted by telephone or through other remote means with interviewees still in Syria, or with individuals based in Lebanon, Jordan, European countries and the USA.
In total, Amnesty International interviewed 84 people for this report. In many cases, two or more interviews were conducted with key witnesses to evaluate the consistency and veracity of the information they provided. In all but two cases, interviews with witnesses were conducted separately. Several interviewees shared their testimonies with Amnesty International at significant personal risk.
For this report, Amnesty International reviewed reports from UN agencies, international NGOs, local monitoring groups and the media. Amnesty International also co-operated with individual activists and Syrian monitoring groups to establish contact with former detainees as well as with the families of persons who have been detained by the Syrian authorities. These groups include Urnammu for Justice and Human Rights, the Syrian Network for Human Rights, and the Syrian Institute for Justice and Accountability. Finally, Amnesty International liaised with the Commission for International Justice and Accountability to corroborate some of the identities of detainees at Saydnaya and several relevant Syrian officials.
Most of the interviewees in this report are referred to by their first name only, following requests by the interviewees. Several asked for their names to be withheld completely, either to protect their own safety or the safety of family members living in Syria. In these cases, Amnesty International has included their testimonies but their names have been changed. These names appear in quotation marks.
Despite repeated requests by Amnesty International for access to Syria, and specifically for access to detention facilities operated by the Syrian authorities, Amnesty International has been barred by the Syrian authorities from carrying out research in the country and consequently has not had access to areas controlled by the Syrian government since the crisis began in 2011. Other independent human rights monitoring groups have faced similar obstacles.
Amnesty International has attempted to engage with the Syrian authorities on human rights concerns, including torture and other ill-treatment, enforced disappearances and deaths in custody, though various means since 2011, in particular by submitting to them cases via communications from its Urgent Action network and by sending letters in advance of the release of public reports. On 6 January 2017, Amnesty International sent a letter to the Syrian authorities requesting clarifications regarding the allegations raised in this report and reiterated Amnesty International’s request for access to all persons deprived of their liberty in Syria. At the time of the publication of this report, Amnesty International has received no response to this letter or to its other requests for information. If the organization receives such a response in the future, it will reflect the government’s observations in subsequent publications.
Why would anyone engage with AI, it is no longer a unbiased organization.
http://rabble.ca/babble/international-news-and-politics/war-syria-4
The problem is foreign interference in the internal politics of Syria. The AI report is yellow journalism that is designed to pound the war drums for an even greater intervention in Syria. I do not believe that the people of Iraq or Libya are better off than they were under the much vilified regimes that we had to overthrow because of how evil they were. The election route is the path to peace not more regime change rhetoric.
We can only be grateful that kropotkin wasn't around through the 1970s and 80s when reports from Amnesty and other NGOs and human rights organizations were front and centre in fueling the solidarity work that so many of us were doing in support of liberation struggles in Central America and Southern Africa.
Or is the implication that those reports were good because they criticized America and its allies? While these more recent reports are bad because they criticize opponents of the US and its allies?
Which would suggest that krop believes that human rights are not in fact universal, but strictly a geo-political convenience. Accessible to some, but not others. Sad.
Exactly.
I don't know whether that's true or not. I haven't seen evidence of AI promoting foreign intervention in countries with terrible human rights records, though I stand to be corrected.
I think that's probably correct. But that's not the standard by which foreign-engineered conflict and regime change should be measured. Foreign intervention, against the wishes of a sovereign country, must be opposed. Otherwise imperialism will last forever, to our applause.
I agree that regime change rhetoric - which oftern masquerades under the lily-white "Responsibility to Protect" label - is dangerous and deadly. But how a people chooses its path to peace - whether elections, or consensus, or hereditary leaders, or whatever - is its own business, as long as it doesn't send soldiers and weapons and bombers to bring "peace" and "human rights" to other countries, while accidentally maybe plundering their resources and adding them to their imperial spheres of influence along the way.
So I go back to your first sentence, krop - and that's where we need to focus our attention. For years, the U.S. and its gang members have said "Assad must go" as a condition for any peace deal. These are the ones whose gang members assassinated Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gaddafi and so many others. Where and when Assad goes is the business of the Syrian people. Those who scream themselves hoarse about his crimes and those of Russia, but act as if the U.S. and its gang members (like Canada) don't even have any military presence in the area? They should have their human rights credentials verified for forgery.
Strange how people like you said little to nothing about Honduras and Haiti during the last couple of years. Oh yeah its because Canada was involved on the wrong side so we mustn't say anything. Don't look at our government and corporations actions look over there at Assad. Why don't you and Josh work on stopping the death and destruction caused by our politicians instead of presuming you can tell other people what to do with their government.
But you can get into trouble that way, no?
I think this might be a little unfair. The level of awreness about Haiti and Honduras is very low. Even here on this site there is rarely information shared. People not talking about these countries may not be due to apporval so much as a lack of awareness. Perhaps Krorpotkin you could update in a new thread on each country instead of taking ignorance for agreement. (Both what is happenign there and Canada's involvement.)
The fact that there is so little coverage even though Canada is involved is terrible.
articles from last year:
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/yves-engler/2016/10/probing-sources-bias...
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/yves-engler/2016/11/peacekeeping-and-his...
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/haiti-canada-blog/2016/10/another-round-...
While Hitler was slaughtering my relatives - not in Germany, but in a country he invaded, contrary to international law - your country did nothing.
When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the U.S. declared war - against Japan. Still in love with Nazi Germany.
Then Hitler, in compliance with his treaty with Japan, declared war on the U.S. Which, to the best of my recollection, did nothing to slow or stop the slaughter in Eastern Europe. Still hoping that the Soviets and Nazis would finish each other off.
So please, josh, don't lecture us about "isolationist human rights" from the bowel of the country which has murdered more millions than any other since World War II - in the name of bringing freedom to people too stupid and backward to win it themselves. From the bowel of the country which sobbed crocodile tears over the women and girls of Afghanistan not getting an education, and Gaddafi "murdering his own people", and Cuba expropriating its own infrastructure from the U.S. bloated pigs who "owned" it, to the countries of Southeast Asia which needed to be "saved" from godless communism, to Saddam Hussein who was no longer doing the bidding of your elected leaders so he had to be hanged, to Aristide and Zelaya and Ortega and Allende and Diefenbaker (yeah, I haven't forgotten that little coup by JFK) and all the others.
Save your tears for the Syrians you think are being hanged, while your police are murdering your fellow citizens in the streets and ghettos, and your armed forces are murdering people around the world, every single day.
Kropttkin and Unionist on international solidarity: As Canadians, its not our place to say anything about bad things happening to people in other countries. Its none of our business.
Nelson Mandela on international solidarity: I am also here today [receiving the Nobel Prize] as a representative of the millions of people across the globe, the anti-apartheid movement, the governments and organisations that joined with us, not to fight against South Africa as a country or any of its peoples, but to oppose an inhuman system and sue for a speedy end to the apartheid crime against humanity. These countless human beings, both inside and outside our country, had the nobility of spirit to stand in the path of tyranny and injustice, without seeking selfish gain. They recognised that an injury to one is an injury to all and therefore acted together in defense of justice and a common human decency. Because of their courage and persistence for many years, we can, today, even set the dates when all humanity will join together to celebrate one of the outstanding human victories of our century. When that moment comes, we shall, together, rejoice in a common victory over racism, apartheid and white minority rule.
Sherpa-Finn: Geez, its a tough call, but forced to make a choice between the two, - well, I am leaning towards Mandela.