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	States must not undermine the absolute legal prohibition of torture by Juan Mendez UN Special Rapporteur on torture, agencies   Dec. 2015   If the Dead Could Speak: Mass Deaths and Torture in Syria’s Detention Facilities, report by Human Rights Watch.   Shocking new evidence has emerged of the brutality inside Syrian jails and detention centres.   A new 86-page Human Rights Watch report, titled If the Dead Could Speak, features photographs and testimonies that document the deaths of nearly 7,000 people in detention facilities at the hands of Syria''s mukhabarat (security agencies). Many appear to have died from torture, beatings or starvation.   The photographs were taken by a former forensic photographer for Syria''s military police who smuggled them out of the country on discs and thumb-drives and later defected from the Syrian government.   Code-named ''Caesar'', it was his job to photograph the bodies of all dead detainees to record the thousands of people who have died in detention since the civil war broke out in 2011, as well as members of the security forces killed by armed opposition groups.   Dahi al-Musulmani''s 14-year-old nephew Ahmad was among them. He says Ahmad fled to Lebanon in 2012 after his brother Shadi was killed in a protest. But he returned to Syria the following year when his mother died.   Syrian authorities stopped him at the border and found a song critical of President Bashar al-Assad on his mobile phone. Ahmad was taken into custody. His uncle spent nearly two years trying to find him and secure his release.   But when the photographs from Caesar were posted online in March 2015 he found his nephew among them.   Human Rights Watch spent nine months finding victims families to verify the photographs and some of the stories behind them. They sent photographs of 19 victims to forensic pathologists at the organisation Physicians for Human Rights, who confirmed the injuries seen in the photos were consistent with torture, beatings and starvation.   Former detainees who have since been released, and guards who have also defected, have confirmed the horrendous conditions for those in custody in Syria, and say torture and malnutrition were widespread.   “Just about every detainee in these photographs was someone’s beloved child, husband, father, or friend, and his friends and family spent months or years searching for him,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “We have meticulously verified dozens of stories, and we are confident the photographs present authentic – and damning – evidence of crimes against humanity in Syria.”   “We have no doubt that the people shown in the photographs were starved, beaten, and tortured in a systematic way, and on a massive scale,” Houry said. “These photographs represent just a fraction of people who have died while in Syrian government custody – thousands more are suffering the same fate.”   The report focuses on 28,707 of the photographs that, based on all available information, show at least 6,786 detainees who died in detention or after being transferred from detention to a military hospital.   Most of the 6,786 victims shown in the Caesar photographs were detained by just five intelligence agency branches in Damascus, and their bodies were sent to at least two military hospitals in Damascus between May 2011, when Caesar began copying files and smuggling them out of his workplace, and August 2013, when he fled Syria. The Syrian Network for Human Rights has documented the arrest and detention of more than 117,000 people in Syria since March 2011.   Human Rights Watch found evidence of widespread torture, starvation, beatings, and disease in Syrian government detention facilities.   “The government registered the deaths, processing dozens of bodies at a time, while taking no action to investigate the cause of death or to prevent yet more people in their custody from dying,” Houry said. “Those pushing for peace in Syria should ensure that these crimes stop and that the people who oversaw this system ultimately face accountability for their crimes.”   * Warning Distressing Content: The following photographs are of people Human Rights Watch understands to have died in government custody, either in one of several detention facilities or after being transferred to a military hospital.   http://www.hrw.org/report/2015/12/16/if-dead-could-speak/mass-deaths-and-torture-syrias-detention-facilities http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-04-11/document-leak-syria-enough-convict-assad-war-crimes http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/assad-files   20 October 2015   The UN Special Rapporteur on torture Juan Mendez has urged governments across the world not to allow a vacuum of human rights protection even when they act beyond their borders, saying “torture is torture here, there and everywhere.”   “Actions by states are increasingly transnational in nature, which has significant impact on the fundamental rights of individuals outside their borders,” Mr. Mendez said presenting his latest report to the UN General Assembly.   “Extraterritorial practices include cross-border military operations or use of force the occupation of foreign territories; anti-migration operations; peacekeeping; the detention of persons abroad; extraditions, rendition to justice, and extraordinary rendition; and the exercise of de facto control or influence over non-State actors operating in foreign territories,” according to the report, “Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”   The independent human rights expert warned that “States must not undermine the absolute legal prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment by evading or limiting responsibility for extraterritorial acts or effects caused by their agents.”   He also drew attention to “the absolute prohibition of non-refoulement applies at all times, even when States are holding individuals or operating extraterritorially, such as during border control operations on the high seas.”   The principle of non-refoulement is the cornerstone of asylum and of international refugee law, and means the expulsion of persons who have the right to be recognised as refugees.   “I am calling upon States to exercise jurisdiction over acts of torture and ill-treatment, regardless of the locus where wrongfulness took place, and to provide civil remedies and rehabilitation for victims of acts of torture or other ill-treatment, regardless of who bears responsibility for mistreatment or where it took place,” Mr. Mendez said.   * Mr. Mendez was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council as the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in November 2010. He is independent from any government.   http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Torture/SRTorture/Pages/SRTortureIndex.aspx Visit the related web page
	World must carry out U.N. slavery pledge says Nobel winner Satyarthi by Nita Bhalla Thomson Reuters Foundation   13 Oct 2015   The new U.N. global development pact may have been a significant step towards ending human trafficking and slavery, but governments must now follow through on their pledge, Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi said on Tuesday.   Although slavery is illegal everywhere, almost 36 million people are enslaved worldwide - trafficked to brothels, forced into manual labour or victims of debt bondage, the Walk Free Foundation estimates.   Last month, the 193 U.N. member states made ending modern-day slavery one of the United Nations'' 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which will shape development and poverty eradication efforts for the next 15 years.   Satyarthi, an Indian whose charity Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement) is credited with rescuing more than 80,000 enslaved children, welcomed adoption of the SDGs but said governments now had a responsibility to allocate adequate budgets and design suitable policies.   "Freedom has always been considered a matter of human rights, but for the first time it has been acknowledged that without freedom there can be no development. But now the question is how to implement it," Satyarthi told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.   "Governments should now prioritise child-centred development goals and devise more holistic policies interlinking education, trafficking, slavery and child labour and violence against children because they are all connected."   The United Nations called for immediate measures "to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour".   Campaigners say countries of major concern include India, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Thailand and Mauritania.   Satyarthi, who was awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousefzai, said he had written to the head of state of every U.N. member asking them to look at successful initiatives to replicate.   There are many "best practices" by governments, civil society organisations and companies across the world, which countries could take up as national policies, he said.   Satyarthi cited the Brazilian conditional cash transfer scheme, where mothers are given a monthly stipend if they withdraw their child from labour and enroll him or her in full-time education, as one example.   The 62-year-old follower of Gandhi said his letter had also called on governments to increase their national and foreign aid budgets for the SDGs related to children.   "This means more funds spent on education, health, the rescue and rehabilitation of child labourers and more money for enforcing the legal framework in relation to trafficking and slavery related issues," he said.   "We have a strong policy document in our hand that can be further used to change the lives of millions of people who are trapped into slavery," he said. "But we can''t stop here." Visit the related web page
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