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- Amnesty International, a quality authorities group, has reported wide maltreatment successful Syrian detention accommodation holding suspected Islamic State members and their relatives.
- The quality authorities group interviewed 126 group accused of Islamic State affiliation presently aliases formerly detained.
- The accommodation are tally by section authorities affiliated pinch nan U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
Amnesty International said Wednesday it has documented wide abuses, including torture and deprivation of aesculapian care, successful detention accommodation holding thousands of suspected Islamic State members and their relatives in northeast Syria.
The centers and camps clasp astir 56,000 group — nan mostly of them children and teens — and are tally by section authorities affiliated pinch nan U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The SDF and its allies, including U.S.-led conjugation forces, defeated nan Islamic State group successful Syria successful 2019, ending its self-proclaimed Islamic "caliphate" that had ruled complete a ample swath of territory straddling Iraq and Syria.
What to do pinch nan suspected IS fighters and their families has go an intractable issue. Many countries whose citizens traveled to Syria to subordinate IS person been reluctant to repatriate them, arsenic person section communities successful Syria.
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"People held successful this strategy are facing large-scale violations of their rights, immoderate of which magnitude to warfare crimes," Nicolette Waldman, Amnesty’s elder situation advisor, told journalists.
Women from erstwhile Islamic State-held areas successful Syria statement up for assistance supplies astatine Al-Hol campy successful Hassakeh province, Syria connected March 31, 2019. Amnesty International said connected Wednesday it has documented wide abuses, including torture and deprivation of aesculapian care, successful Syrian detention accommodation holding thousands of suspected Islamic State members and their relatives. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File)
The United States is besides responsible for nan alleged violations because it played a cardinal domiciled successful establishing and maintaining nan detention system, providing hundreds of millions of dollars to nan SDF and affiliated forces and regularly interrogating detainees, Waldman said.
The quality authorities group interviewed 126 group accused of IS affiliation presently aliases formerly detained, on pinch representatives of nan section management and assistance workers.
The Amnesty study said nan immense mostly of detainees are being held "indefinitely, without complaint aliases trial, successful usurpation of world quality authorities rule and world humanitarian law," while those who person been tried were, successful galore cases, convicted connected nan ground of confessions extracted nether torture.
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The alleged abuses see "beating, accent positions, drowning, electrical shocks and gender-based violence," including a antheral detainee who said he and others had been sodomized pinch broomsticks by guards, nan study said. Detainees were besides deprived of food, h2o and aesculapian attraction and subjected to utmost acold and power successful overcrowded cells, pinch immoderate allegedly dying of suffocation, it said.
The study added that galore of nan astir 14,500 women and 30,000 children held had been victims of quality trafficking, including women who were forced to wed IS fighters and minors who were forcibly recruited by nan group, and that section authorities had grounded to group up a "mechanism to place trafficking victims" and protect them.
The study besides criticized nan believe of forcibly separating teen boys — immoderate arsenic young arsenic 11 aliases 12 — from their mothers and placing them successful rehabilitation centers indefinitely.
Amnesty called connected section authorities, nan U.S. authorities and different friends to bring nan detention strategy into compliance pinch world rule and urged nan United Nations to activity pinch them to found a screening process to merchandise each who are not "reasonably suspected" of having committed a superior crime.
The Autonomous Authorities of nan North and East Syria Region, nan civilian management affiliated pinch nan SDF, wrote successful consequence to nan Amnesty findings that it had not received immoderate charismatic complaints regarding torture successful detention accommodation and "if this happened, they are individual acts."
The management said it would return action against labor who committed violations if grounds is provided. It denied allegations that inmates were deprived of food, h2o and aesculapian care. It acknowledged overcrowding successful nan facilities, which it attributed to deficiency of financial resources to unafraid larger centers.
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The section authorities took rumor pinch nan allegation that group were arbitrarily detained, asserting that astir detainees "are members of a violent statement and were arrested during nan battles" and that galore had committed crimes against humanity and warfare crimes.
The U.S. State Department said successful its ain consequence that "we stock galore of (Amnesty’s) concerns" and it has been moving to reside them. It called connected nan world organization to "aid section entities’ guidance of these challenges" and for countries pinch citizens held successful detention successful Syria to repatriate them.
Waldman said she believes Washington "very apt knew astir these mediocre conditions from nan beginning."
She added: "We deliberation that it whitethorn not beryllium nan lawsuit that they are doing everything they can. They request to judge a overmuch greater responsibility, particularly since they played specified a cardinal domiciled successful establishing nan business successful nan first place."
