The Bureau recommends a report by Human Rights Watch, which has named 74 commanders and officials who it believes are responsible for ordering attacks on unarmed Syrian protestors.
Based on more than 60 interviews with defectors from the Syrian military and intelligence agencies, the report details the names, ranks and positions of officers and commanders who ordered their units to participate in attacks on civilians.
The defectors have claimed that they were told there would be no consequences for using lethal force against protestors, and that in some cases commanders themselves participated in the violence.
Human Rights Watch says the report ‘leaves no doubt’ that the Syrian government ‘committed widespread and systematic abuses, including killings, arbitrary detention, and torture, as part of a state policy targeting the civilian population’.
The organisation has now called for Syria to be referred to the International Criminal Court, and for the officers responsible to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.
The report follows an investigation published in yesterday’s Guardian describing the systematic use of torture by the Syrian regime.
For the full report, click here.
