Saturday, February 04, 2012
Syrian forces have detained and tortured children as young as 13 as president Bashar al-Assad’s regime tries to crush a nearly 11-month-old uprising, Human Rights Watch said, as fresh clashes erupted between regime troops and rebels in the country’s south.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said it had documented at least 12 cases of children detained under "inhumane" conditions and tortured, as well as children shot in their homes or on the street.
"Children have not been spared the horror of Syria’s crackdown," said Lois Whitman, children’s rights director at the New York-based group.
"Syrian security forces have killed, arrested, and tortured children in their homes, their schools, or on the streets. In many cases, security forces have targeted children just as they have targeted adults."
The report quoted a 16-year-old boy from the town of Tal Kalakh near the Lebanese border as saying he was detained for eight months during which he was held in seven different detention centres, as well as the Homs Central Prison.
The boy, whom HRW referred to as Alaa, said security forces first asked him how many protests he participated in, and then cuffed his left hand to the ceiling and left him hanging there for about seven hours, standing on his toes.
"They beat me for about two hours with cables and shocked me with cattle prods. Then they threw water on the ground and poured water on me from above," he said.
The parents of a 13-year-old boy from the coastal city of Latakia told HRW that in December security officers arrested him and held him for nine days. According to his parents, he was accused of burning photos of Assad, vandalising security forces’ cars and inciting other children to protest.
Security officers burned him with cigarettes on his neck and hands, the parents said, and threw boiling water on his body.
An adult former detainee told HRW that some children were raped while in detention.
Yesterday’s fighting in Jassem, in the southern province of Daraa, killed at least one soldier and wounded five, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. In the north, a roadside bomb killed two boys in the province of Idlib, state media and activists said.
The Syrian conflict has grown more militarised in recent months as army defectors have joined the uprising against Assad and formed a guerrilla force.
The UN estimated in January that at least 5,400 people have been killed in the crackdown.
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