SOHR: The Assad regime releases 60 detainees in a new presidential pardon

 

Since yesterday, the Syrian regime has released more than 60 detainees from prisons in a presidential general amnesty that is the most comprehensive in the crimes of “terrorism”, according to what the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

Bashar al-Assad has previously issued several amnesty decrees since the beginning of his suppression of the revolution against him, which later turned into a civil war that included many exceptions, the last of which was last May, weeks before his re-election as president for the fourth time.

But the decree, which was issued on Saturday, two days before Eid al-Fitr, is considered, according to activists, the most comprehensive with regard to “terrorism” crimes, as it does not include exceptions, as usual.

The new decree provides for “granting a general amnesty for terrorist crimes committed by Syrians” before April 30, 2022, “except for those that led to the death of a human being and stipulated in the Anti-Terrorism Law.”

On Monday, the Syrian Observatory reported that “more than 60 detainees have been released since Sunday from various Syrian regions, some of whom have spent at least ten years” in the regime’s prisons.

It is assumed that if the implementation of the new decree is completed, according to the observatory, “tens of thousands of detainees” will be released, many of whom are accused of crimes related to “terrorism”, which the director of the observatory, Rami Abdel Rahman, described as “a loose title to condemn the arbitrarily arrested.”

According to a list circulated by activists on social media, which included 20 names, among those released were detainees who spent years in the notorious Sednaya prison, which Amnesty International described as a “human slaughterhouse” after documenting the execution of about 13,000 people there by hanging between 2011 and 2015.

The Executive Director of the Syrian Center for Justice and Accountability, Muhammad Al-Abdullah, suggested that “the largest part of those who may be released will be from the Sednaya detainees, because most of them have been referred to the terrorism court.”

“It is the first time in a few years that we have seen detainees leave Sednaya,” he told AFP. However, he warned that the amnesty could exclude “civil society and human rights activists who are not prosecuted for terrorist crimes.”

– “Provocative timing”

Lawyer Nora Ghazi, director of the “No Photo Zone” organization concerned with providing legal assistance to detainees and missing persons and their families, considered that “the largest amnesty issued since the beginning of the Syrian revolution because it includes all crimes related to terrorism, except for those that did not cause death.”

“A lot of people are expected to come out, but it will take a lot of time,” she says.

But Ghazi saw that the amnesty law was “issued at a provocative time, as it appears to be a reaction to what has become known as the Tadamon neighborhood massacre” near Damascus, after media reports of video clips dating back to 2013 published by the British newspaper The Guardian and the Newlines Institute last week about killing members of the forces. Order for dozens of people.

There was no official response from Damascus.

 

 

Source: .middleeast-24