Enab Baladi – Ali Darwish
Documents from the hell of Sednaya prison are being burned by a civilian to gain some warmth in the vicinity of the prison while waiting for news about a relative. A video clip published by activists reflects the lack of awareness among some about the importance of these documents later on, which should have been handled with greater care, especially by the military factions that entered the regime’s detention centers and released the detainees.
Hours after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, video clips circulated showing fighters and civilians roaming among shelves containing documents and reports chronicling the last days of tens of thousands of Syrians or led to their arrest and inhumane treatment, and also documented the names of those responsible for that.
Documents strewn on the ground, others taken by individuals whether civilians or military personnel, possibly from the former regime’s ranks, have led to the loss or damage of security documents and reports, the extent of which is still unknown.
Some security branches were also targeted by Israeli airstrikes, part of a series of bombardments aimed at military sites in Syria across various provinces, which increased the issue of document loss and destruction.
The importance of prison documents
The state of lack of control over access to detention facilities and the tampering with their contents continued for about four days until the Military Operations Administration closed these facilities and concluded search and rescue operations, led by the Syria Civil Defence (White Helmets), which searched for hidden jails or rooms within them, as happened in Sednaya prison.
Mohammad al-Abdallah, director of the Syria Justice and Accountability Center (SJAC), launched a call to the public on December 11 to cooperate in collecting documents and evidence and assisting in prosecuting the former regime’s officials.
Al-Abdallah indicated that these papers are evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against the Syrian people, and it is vital at this stage to preserve them, take photos of them, remove them, or keep them, and help human rights organizations access these documents.
In the second phase, assisting human rights organizations in reaching victims, or through providing information and evidence regarding those responsible for torture and detention operations from regime officers and their elements, particularly those who previously worked in security branches.
The primary objective of this work is to support the victims and their families, to know the fate of the missing, and to prosecute those responsible for committing war crimes. The SJAC will work on publishing updates about the documents and evidence it has obtained, providing an email and contact number for communication.
Al-Abdallah explained to Enab Baladi that documents in security branches are at risk of being lost or destroyed, as they could be burned by former regime figures, stolen, tampered with, scattered, or photos of them published on social media.
Publishing them irresponsibly may lead to the dissemination of forged or altered copies, undermining their credibility. Therefore, it is very important to quickly retrieve them from people’s hands, document them, keep them safe; this is an archive of the Syrian people. Furthermore, it serves as evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against the Syrian people for decades, not only during the past 14 years, according to al-Abdallah’s statement.
A large portion of these documents contains evidence against individuals who were previously informers or security report writers or officers, which could incite retaliatory actions from individuals who, after seeing the document, recognize the person responsible for harming their relatives or neighbors.
This situation occurred in Iraq after the publication of the Iraqi archive, where individuals became aware of the informers, leading to their execution in the streets; disseminating such information may lead to acts of violence.
Authorities should act quickly
Regarding the activities of the SJAC on the ground regarding the documents, al-Abdallah mentioned that they currently have a task to obtain some documents or photos of them, and the center may acquire original documents.
However, the volume of documents and the scattering of security centers and their disarray is greater than what any center or team can handle, which is why a call was made concerning this matter after the regime’s fall.
Karam Shaar, director of the Syrian program at the Observatory of Political and Economic Networks, told Enab Baladi that they have not obtained documents from the security branches except for what is publicly available, but the center possesses prior documents, that is, from before the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
According to al-Abdallah, the current authority must collect, protect, and archive the documents and prevent their theft and scattering, and of course, protect them from burning and damage. This is the essential step that should be taken, but video clips showed individuals throwing documents on the ground, some of which were soaked in water, some trampled, and others subjected to conditions that lead to their damage.
Shaar mentioned that the current authority, after gaining access to these documents, should attempt to recover lost documents.
The top priority is to secure all security centers belonging to the regime, and thereafter, ensure that all these documents are taken and preserved, even though this requires judicial and police apparatus, which is currently unavailable.
Shaar anticipated that the National Security Bureau possesses digitized copies of the majority of the documents, and here lies a crucial connecting piece, which is the technical aspect. The authority should take control of this, necessitating the presence of a previously employed engineer from this system to assist in acquiring digitized document copies.
Previous documents lost, documentation preserved them
In 2017, the YouTube management team deleted thousands of video clips documenting violence in Syria, as those clips were categorized as “inappropriate” by a system that operates automatically designed to detect “extremist content.”
The Syria Justice and Accountability Center succeeded in collecting one and a half million recorded clips before YouTube removed them, in addition to gathering documents from the Syrian security apparatus that fell into the hands of defectors or were left in areas controlled by opposition forces.
The volume of these documents reached 500,000 paper pages, obtained by the documentation team at the SJAC, in cooperation with partner human rights organizations that provided duplicate documents, along with video recorded testimonies.
Trials require an abundance of testimonies at a time when the combatant parties are hiding evidence that proves their involvement in committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria. Here, the importance of testimonial evidence emerges in providing statements and additions regarding these violations.