Torture Photos from "Caesar"

On January 21, 2014, the media grew abuzz with startling news of "industrial scale" torture, abuse, and murder of at least 11,000 Syrian prisoners by their government, proven to an unusual degree by actual photographs and a rigorous study by credible investigators of such crimes. The allegations and invocation of Nazi death camp parallels made waves, among other places, at the Geneva 2 peace conference which began in Montreaux the following day.

The claims are lodged originally by an alleged defector - code-named "Ceasar" - in possession of thousands of photos he says were taken, by him, in the Syrian prison system where he worked. With funding from Qatar, the claim was bolstered with the hire of British law firm Carter-Ruck, and a team of three war crimes prosecutors. This team produced a report (stamped "CONFIDENTIAL" but ultimately released on the 21st, via CNN and the Guardian) that seems a bit short on rigor in verifying the photos, and long on trusting "Caesar's" characterization of things. (deeper analysis pending)

The photographs, as far as can be seen, do suggest systematic torture and abuse of captive men, as noted including various bodily injuries, starvation, and finally various kinds of execution. We can't know how many images of how many bodies there truly are, or how representative the publicized few are. But it seems criminal abuses are being carried out to whatever degree, and merit close scrutiny. With this report of questionable integrity being precisely the scrutiny thus far, there is great reason to doubt just when and where the photos were taken, by whom, of whom, and under what circumstances. The core assertion of the report, that it proves crimes "by the current Syrian regime." so convenient in play at Geneva, remains not only uncertain but in fact highly questionable.

On July 31, 2014, "Caesar" made an impassioned presentation before the US Congess (House Foreign Affairs Committee) citing the photos as proof of Assad's "genocide," spurring lawmakers to new calls for further action against Syria's government. See below.

The Defector and the Photographs
(forthcoming...)

The Report and Media Promotion
Title: A Report into the credibility of certain evidence with regard to Torture and Execution of Persons Incarcerated by the current Syrian regime (Prepared for Carter-­‐Ruck and Co. Solicitors of London.)

The report is marked on each page "CONFIDENTIAL," but this stringest measure was waived in the interest of bringing "Caesar's" important allegations before the global public. This was done through two media outlets - CNN in the United States, and the Guardian in the UK.
 * CNN PDF link(file name: Syria Board of Inquiry Doha PDF)
 * Guardian online readable posting
 * Guardian PDF link

Interestingly, the Qatari-owned al-Jazeera was relegated, along with the rest, to follower status on this story. This may suggest the seriousness with which the house of Thani has approached this information offensive against "the current Syrian regime."


 * CNN article: EXCLUSIVE: Gruesome Syria photos may prove torture by Assad regime

Further, copies of the photos had been given to Turkish news outlet Anadolu Agency prior to a Jan. 20 report. A later story explained the Caesar photos story was "a joint exclusive by Anadolu Agency, CNN and Britain's The Guardian newspaper." Anadolu may have had extra access; their report in particular spurred a request from UN investigator for copies. As AA reported January 23:
 * In an e-mail regarding the "Syria war crimes evidence" story published on AA website on January 20 "which the Commission read with great interest", the Commission said it would like to view those materials that support the conclusions in the case.
 * In response, Anadolu Agency said it is ready to contribute to the Commission’s upcoming reports about the human rights violations committed throughout the Syrian Arab Republic.
 * "Indeed, we have determined, based on a threshold of ‘reasonable grounds to believe’, that torture, amounting to a crime against humanity, has occurred inside official Syrian detention centres," said the Commission.


 * WSJ article suggests that there was a separate facility for Syrian military officers. So "Caesar" than likely will photograph those killed who were not believed to be Syrian military. This by itself does not imply that the rest were executed by the Government, and does not establish how they were killed.

Syria

 * Xinhua reports
 * The Syrian Ministry of Justice on Wednesday denied a recent report by the British Carter-Ruck law office that accused the Syrian administration of torturing and killing thousands of detainees in government-run detention centers, the official SANA news agency said. The report is "politicized and lacks objectivity and professionalism," the ministry said in a statement after the report was firstly published on Monday, describing it as "baseless."
 * They didn't claim there were no photos, nor that the photos did not depict crimes. Rather:

"The report is a mere gathering of photos of unidentified persons proving that a number of them are foreign terrorists from several nationalities who had been killed when attacking the military checkpoints and civil institutions," the statement said, adding that "part of them are civilians and military personnel who were tortured and killed by the armed terrorist groups because of their support to the state."''
 * And of course they claim it was a politically motivated operation:

The ministry said "the aforementioned law office is clearly linked to hostile sides to the Syrian Arab Republic since the beginning of the crisis in Syria." ... The ministry added that the report was published two days before the Geneva II conference, undoubtedly proving that it has a political aim and tried to undermine the efforts exerted to realize peace in Syria and end terrorism in the country.

Russia
Russia's Prime Minister Medvedev met CNN's Christiane Amanpour in his office, for a televised presentation with the photos she's certain are of crimes by Russia's ally. As the summary says:
 * “These are crimes, of course,” Medvedev told Amanpour at his office outside Moscow, but the case “should have firm proof legally.”


 * “I know there are a lot of victims, and that's very sad, but that does not mean that the existence of victims or victims in a particular place is the proof that those are the victims of the regime and not the bandits who were doing something or any other force.”


 * “You know, in my university where I was studying law, I was taught that until the fact of guilt is proved in court, a person cannot be claimed guilty,” he said. “We cannot say that Assad is a criminal without investigation,” he told Amanpour. “So probably this other trial should be held on the territory of Syria after the conflict subsides. It's the right of the Syrian people.”

Turkey

 * Hurriyet Daily News: Syria unable to explain away photos showing torture in Syria, Turkish FM says
 * Syrian officials attending peace talks in Montreux, Switzerland, Jan. 23 could not dismiss photos that purported to show evidence of systematic torture, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has said. The regime could not say that they had no connection with the photos. The person who took the photos testified in front of a group of international lawyers,” Davutoğlu said. “How can someone produce 55,000 photos if nothing occurred?” 

[...]
 * “The regime has two paths [open to it]. Either it will step into serious negotiations or all the members of the regime will be tried in The Hague or in the International Criminal Court. One or all of these will happen in the upcoming period,” Davutoğlu said.


 * When Damascus does something that is revealed, some try to protect the Syrian government and put Turkey in a difficult position, Davutoğlu added. “I am surprised by those who are asking, ‘What was going on behind this?’ instead of feeling indignation after seeing those photos,” he said.

U.S.
As BBC news reported, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said the new evidence "underscores that it makes it even more important that we make progress [at Geneva II]. The situation on the ground is so horrific that we need to get a political transition in place, and we need to get the Assad regime out of power. ... These most recent images are extremely disturbing; they are horrible to look at and they illustrate apparent actions that would be serious international crimes, and we have long said that those responsible for these kinds of serious violations in Syria must be held to account."

U.K.
As BBC News reported Foreign Secretary William Hague expressed similar sentiments, telling the House of Commons: "I've seen a lot of this evidence, it is compelling and horrific. And it is important that those who have perpetrated these crimes are one day held to account."

ACLOS Findings
(forthcoming... )

July 25, Pelude
On July 25, seemingly out of nowhere, the Wall Street Journal published a new video highlighting "Caesar's" photos and the familiar story. This report identifies the "hospital 601" they think the photos were taken at (suspiciously close to Assad's palace). Thousands of corpses were processed, they note, and it's believed they were tortured prisoners - this hardly seems worth contesting. Stephen Rapp from the US State Department is shown addressing the Atlantic Council: "the Syrian government has a mania for documentation that we haven't seen since the Khmer Rouge or the Nazis." As an example he cites these photos of people burned, starved, gouged and killed by somebody, and then documented - in the thousands. Rapp doesn't even mention or seem to care if the government killed the people - it's the simple documentation that seems to upset him. The one image the WSJ video adds, over and over, is the one inset at left. We're to presume this apparently Christian man rose up against the government and it was they, not the Islamist rebels ravaging Syria, who killed him. The proof, as usual - the government wound up with the body, and documented it.

July 31, Appearance
Six days after that video, on July 31, Caesar appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee "under heightened security, with strict limits on press photographers and a prohibition on audio recordings of the briefing. He wore a blue rain jacket with the hood on and cinched tightly around his head to conceal his face." It was "the first time he publicly told his story since reaching the United States."

As AFP reported, he gave some clues to what he was actually tasked with photographing: "I had the job of taking pictures of all the deaths ... before and after the revolution,” not just hose tortured to death by the government. “Sometimes I would come across pictures of my own neighbors and some of my friends that I recognized,” he added. “Death would have been my fate if the regime had found out I was leaking out secret information.”

“What is going on in Syria is genocidal massacre,” the defector, known as “Caesar,” said through an interpreter. Mr. Assad “destroyed the country and killed his own people with no mercy.” Genocide against which section of the populace is not specified, but past precedent and Qatar's commissioning suggests the guy they picked would say it's against Sunni Muslims by the "Alawite regime." Note the WSJ video (image above) gave one possilbe clue with the Chritian man who was abducted, starved, and murdered. This is sometimes done by Qatar-favored Sunni extremist terrorists in Syria.

"Poster-size enlargements" of his images "were displayed around the hearing room," Washington Times noted, as well as displayed on video screens. It was noted the photos were reminiscent of the Holocaust; in a subtle reference to that, Caesar showed his poetic side, channeling Oskar Schindler: “He who kills an innocent, it is the same as if he kills the entire humanity,” he told the lawmakers, urging them to help stop Mr. Assad. “And he who would save a single soul, it is as if he would save the entire humanity.”

One moved lawmaker, Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, said afterwards “We had a responsibility to send a message to Assad that his criminal behavior would not be tolerated, but we didn’t. Unfortunately, we didn’t ... Instead, here we are a year later, and we see new evidence of the Assad regime’s torture chambers and death squads. ... Mr. Caesar is a courageous man. He has captured the face of evil through the lens of his camera, putting himself at grave risk.” He's in the United States, of course, as he urges military action against Syria. Judging by the Libya precedent, those who remain in Syria - not Caesar himself - would be at grave risk if that "help" ever materialized. Thankfully for them, a Libya-style intervention is probably as unlikely now as it ever was, but this process of trying for that can be repeated, as it already has many, many times.

Caesar at the Holocaust Museum
Throughout the photo campaign, commentators have frequently have mentioned the Holocaust of World War II that the images, especially of starved victims, evoked for them. In early October it was announced a portion of the photos "Caesar" smuggled out would be displayed in an unprecedented exhibit at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in New York - the equivalent of making it on Broadway for a stage actor. As Newsweek reported on October 21 how "a handful of the 55,000 photos" was put up "on public display for the first time at the museum and on its website on October 15." Cameron Hudson, the director of the museum’s Center for Prevention of Genocide told Newsweek the photos "were more extreme than anything we [normally] show in our museum,” but as the article explains "The museum’s leadership believes the public should bear witness to what Caesar says he saw and recorded."

The Museum has this page at their website: Evidence of Atrocities in Syria This includes a video slideshow of some images, mostly published elsewhere already.
 * The Museum is sharing these photos with the public to document the severity of the crimes the Syrian government is committing against its own people. The former military photographer who brought these images to us risked his life to tell the world what is happening in his homeland. We have an obligation to bring that truth to light.
 * We also understand that other parties to the conflict, such as the self-proclaimed Islamic State, have committed serious crimes. The Museum has raised concerns about threats to religious communities in the region, and we are documenting other abuses and atrocities perpetrated in the conflict.

The Museum's page also claims, incorrectly, that "the current Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad says the photos are fake." They're far from the first to make this claim, but it's never supported. In fact, the Syrian Ministry of Justice - who run the prisons where these people were allegedly killed in - said the photos were real and showed "unidentified persons proving that a number of them are foreign terrorists from several nationalities who had been killed when attacking the military checkpoints and civil institutions." Another portion of those documented were "civilians and military personnel who were tortured and killed by the armed terrorist groups because of their support to the state" and/or their religion, a point Syrian officials try to avoid.

There is no known evidence that photos are fake. However, circumstances and responsibility were not established. The Museum used the overwhelmingly predominant  in the mass media  presentation in its web page description.

A powerful rebuttal of the presentation was run by RT Op-Edge, October 30: Using the Holocaust to Justify War on Assad by Maidhc Ó Cathail. This covers the political portions of Ceasar's support team - from David Crane to Homeland Security's former head Michael Chertoff, to Caesar's translator - the whole "evoke the holocaust" idea, and the people and groups promoting this new push with that tested and tired formula.