generalspeaking

Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Syria's 'Enemies of the State'

"This report illustrates how the Syrian government has effectively criminalized the provision of nondiscriminatory care to all, regardless of political affiliation."
"[Workers who provide care in line with their legal and ethical obligations are branded] enemies of the state [in Syria]."
"[A majority of Syrian health care workers who fled the country were arrested] because of their status as care providers, and their real or perceived involvement in t he provision of health services to opposition members and sympathizers."
Physicians for Human Rights report

"The law is problematic."
"The reality is that under this law, anyone could be a terrorist."
Mai El-Sadany, legal and judicial director, Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, Washington

"The continuing threat and persecution of professions including medical professionals is a huge barrier to returning."
"To freely practice in accordance with their code of ethics -- they don't see that as possible."
Rayan Koteiche, Physicians for Human Rights

The entrance of Idlib Health Directorate in November 2018. Photo: Getty Images.

For violations of human rights and the universal codes of military conduct in places of conflict of an unprecedented magnitude look no further than Bashar al-Assad's Alawite Shiite regime in civil war- conflicted Syria which has resulted in over a half-million Sunni Syrian deaths, internal displacement of millions of Syrians, and millions more swelling the ranks of the world's refugees. This butcher of Damascus who ranks Sunni protesters along with 'terrorists' and treats them accordingly with no humanitarian holds barred, stands out for the atrocities committed under his brutal watch in an area of the world where mass atrocities regularly occur.

His violations of what, during wartime is considered to be within the bounds of international conventions has been notable for their extremes, from the use of chemical weapons, to barrel bombs, to the bombing of bread lines, hospitals and clinics and marketplaces. His notorious torture of prisoners, arrest and torture of children, all the while claiming that everyone who opposes his brutality and scorched-earth responses to originally-peaceful protests are 'scum', set him apart and above those generally considered to be state-level war criminals.

Back in 2011 Assad's government enacted a counterterrorism law making it a criminal offence for health workers and physicians to render any aid to those whom he considers enemies of the Syrian state. The criminalization of medical care has seen the collapse of the nation's health care system. The crime-status of giving even the most basic of medical care, like disinfecting a wound or giving painkillers through clinics in neighbourhoods held by insurgents are punishable under a counterterrorism law.

In this file photo from 2017, a nurse carries a box of ventilation tubes to prepare for sterilization as doctors perform an operation rebel-held Douma [File: Mohammed Badra/EPA]

Where a special court is known to have tried tens of thousands of medical workers and others, under the law. A study released by Physicians for Human Rights speaks of health workers who are branded "enemies of the state", and as such they are free game for government vengeance. Extensive interviews were undertaken with 21 formerly detained Syrian health care workers who fled the country. Without exception they all had undergone fearful interrogations while imprisoned, along with torture. None wished to be identified by name in fear of retribution.

According to Ibrahim al-KIasem, a Syrian lawyer who represented detainees, trials in military courts are held in secret with detainees tried in the counterterrorism court minus lawyers. "The judges have the ability to do anything" in such settings, he stressed. Legal scholars and rights activists speak of the counterterrorism law as vague in identifying terrorism. That lack of specificity leaves the situation wide open for government agencies and the military to apply their own widely encompassing and inclusionary definitions of just who is a terrorist. Taking their cue from their president.

Those same legal scholars have no trouble whatever in stating that the law violates the Geneva Convention that obliges doctors and other health care professionals to treat the wounded and the sick, irrespective of which 'side' in a conflict they may support or be representative of. And nor would the vast majority of former detainees who fled the country contemplate returning at any given time, under current conditions imposed by the current regime.