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Counter-Terrorism Court in Syria A Tool For War Crimes
Counter-Terrorism Court in Syria A Tool For War Crimes
The Syrian government security agencies have referred over 80,000 people, most of them civilians, to
the Counter-Terrorism Court (CTC) created in 2012 under a presidential decree, the Violations Documentation Center (VDC) said in a report it released today. The VDC confirmed that over 2,400 people
who had been arbitrarily arrested by various Syria security agencies could be referred to that court in
one month in 2014.
The 41 - page report Counter-Terrorism Court in Syria: a Tool for War Crimes also documents the
cases of that thousands of arbitrarily arrested persons, mostly civilians, referred to the Military Field
Court where they received inhumane judgments including around 80 death sentences. The VDC documented dozens of cases of severe beating and torture where detainees would appear before the judge
with bleeding faces or bodies after severe beating by the security agents before being brought before
the court.
On 21 April 2012, the Syrian government issued decree number (161) ending the state of emergency
that had been continuously in effect in the country since 1962. A second decree followed, abolishing
the Supreme State Security Court. In early July 2012, Counter-Terrorism Law No. 19 was issued, defining terms like terrorist action, terrorist organization and financing terrorism in addition to setting
penalties for committing or promoting terrorist acts.
In fact, the Counter-Terrorism Court came to expand the definition of those it considers to be threatening the state security to include much wider groups in the Syrian society especially peaceful activists
(including peaceful female activists and even children).
On February 22, 2014 the UN Security Council passed Resolution No. 2139 which strongly condemned the arbitrary detention and torture of civilians in Syria, namely in prisons and detention facilities, as well as the kidnappings, abductions and forced disappearances. The resolution unequivocally
demanded putting an immediate end to these practices and called for the release of all arbitrarily detained persons starting with women and children, as well as sick, wounded and elderly people, UN and
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Violations Documentation
Center in Syria