Talk:Torture Photos from "Caesar"

Press reactions

 * Syrian regime document trove shows evidence of 'industrial scale' killing of detainees – Ian Black, The Guardian, 21 January 2014
 * ''Syrian government officials could face war crimes charges in the light of a huge cache of evidence smuggled out of the country showing the "systematic killing" of about 11,000 detainees, according to three eminent international lawyers.
 * ''The authors are Sir Desmond de Silva QC, former chief prosecutor of the special court for Sierra Leone, Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, the former lead prosecutor of former Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic, and Professor David Crane, who indicted President Charles Taylor of Liberia at the Sierra Leone court.


 * Syria 'Industrial' Killing: Report Details Deaths Of 11,000 In Assad Jails – Reuters, 01/21/2014
 * ''A Syrian military police photographer has supplied "clear evidence" showing the systematic torture and killing of about 11,000 detainees in circumstances that evoked Nazi death camps, former war crimes prosecutors said.


 * ''The images he took were passed to the Syrian National Movement, which is supported by the Gulf state of Qatar. Lawyers acting for Qatar, London-based Carter-Ruck and Co., commissioned the examination of the evidence.


 * ''The three former prosecutors, who worked at the criminal war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone, examined the evidence and interviewed the source in three sessions in the last 10 days. They found him credible.


 * Torture in Syria: Photos may be proof of 'industrial-scale killing' carried out by Assad regime – Kunal Dutta, The Independent, 21 January 2014
 * ''Lawyers acting for the Arab state of Qatar claim to have evidence smuggled out of Syria that shows the “systemic killing” of about 11,000 Syrian detainees at the hands of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
 * ''The allegations, contained in a 31-page report released yesterday to coincide with the Geneva II talks, were described as a “smoking gun” that could see Syrian officials charged with war crimes.


 * Photo Archive Is Said to Show Widespread Torture in Syria – New York Times, Jan. 21, 2014
 * ''Emaciated corpses lie in the sand, their ribs protruding over sunken bellies, their thighs as thin as wrists. Several show signs of strangulation. The images conjure memories of some of history’s worst atrocities.
 * ''Numbers inscribed on more than 11,000 bodies in 55,000 photographs said to emerge from the secret jails of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, suggest that torture, starvation and execution are widespread and even systematic, each case logged with bureaucratic detail.


 * Syria 'smoking gun' report warrants a careful read – Dan Murphy, January 21, 2014
 * ''The report by former war crimes prosectors alleges the Syrian regime has tortured 11,000 prisoners. The claim is credible, but don't forget the agenda.


 * ''Which leaves me feeling kind of awkward about a report released Monday that alleges 11,000 prisoners have been tortured, starved, or otherwise beaten to death in Syrian government custody since 2011. It's a believable assertion based on what is known about Syrian government practice and the conduct of the war. But the report itself is nowhere near as credible as it makes out and should be viewed for what it is: A well-timed propaganda exercise funded by Qatar, a regime opponent who has funded rebels fighting Assad who have committed war crimes of their own.


 * Torture photos are 'politicized' and 'fake': Syria – Syria 24 English on Facebook
 * ''Syria's Justice Ministry has dismissed a report alleging mass torture and killing by the government as "politicized" depicting the shocking photos in the document "fake".

Starting Thoughts

 * ''moved from Other research


 * Crane-Da Silva-Nice Torture Report or Torture Photos from "Caesar": CNN reports "A team of internationally renowned war crimes prosecutors and forensic experts has found "direct evidence" of "systematic torture and killing" by the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, the lawyers on the team say in a new report." The report: Syria Board of Inquiry Doha PDF (Prepared for Carter-­‐Ruck and Co. Solicitors of London.) The photo with the article shows a man with censored things done to his face and chest, and zero proof who he was or who did it. I'll review the report, but the article summarizes:
 * The bodies in the photos showed signs of starvation, brutal beatings, strangulation, and other forms of torture and killing, according to the report.
 * In a group of photos of 150 individuals examined in detail by the experts, 62% of the bodies showed emaciation -- severely low body weight with a hollow appearance indicating starvation. The majority of all of the victims were men most likely aged 20-40.
 * A complex numbering system was also used to catalog the corpses, with only the relevant intelligence service knowing the identities of the corpses. It was an effort, the report says, to keep track of which security service was responsible for the death, and then later to provide false documentation that the person had died in a hospital.

From highlights: "Defector provided thousands of photographs of victims, a new report states" "The defector, codenamed "Caesar," allegedly photographed as many as 50 bodies a day" (Do ANY of them show normal access to areas rebels couldn't access, like actual staffed prisons? Or is it in all some room, some dirt yard, etc.?) --Caustic Logic (talk) 00:28, 22 January 2014 (UTC)


 * No sign whatsoever of forensic examination of the digital media - the jpeg file data as compared to what they portray. This is normal procedure. EXIF data would show actual image dates - not the file dates you normally see, plus usually the camera model and sometimes serial number and GPS coordinates. Failure to do this basic and very easy check indicates to me they didn't want to know the answer. At this stage the images could easily have been from Qatari prisons or more likely from Libya.
 * I'm reminded of the Mandy Rice Davies quote "He would [say that], wouldn't he" --Charles Wood (talk) 01:48, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Excellent points. They'll point out every "tramline injury" and define what that means, but they seem to have no firm grasp on when, where, and by whom these images were taken. Besides no sign of assessing this crucial information, there are signs they actively have avoided it. If they knew from the EXIF data when they were taken, or were calling on that knowledge, they wouldn't likely say "the images were said to have been produced during a time of armed conflict in Syria," and so they had to consider if the injuries were from combat (uh, no). Ever so careful those guys were. A relatively minor point: "bandages, most of which appeared make-shift, were present in 9%." Are makeshift bandages more a state prison or rebel field clinic thing?
 * Also, I made a link best filled in with the best title. In case someone more knowledgeable on these issues and more methodical wants to start it up. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:31, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Image Analysis
(there may well be some analysis here of the actual images that have been publicized - forthcoming...)

Metadata
I create this empty section much like the page(s) at large, getting towards drunk, sorry, and to encourage other members with more knowledge on this important aspect of the evidence to help the reader (and me) get it. (that will be Charles Wood, Petri Krohn, probably CE and everyone else too) the importance of image metadata, EX/IF, whatever it's called, and what it seems should have been/was done with it in this case, etc. Optional intro can be deleted. --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:54, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Signs of Willful Avoidance
As the New York Times reported, citing a State Department official, that back in November "a State Department official viewed some of the images on a laptop belonging to an antigovernment activist."
 * The United States did not act on the photos for the past two months, officials said, because it did not have possession of the digital files and could not establish their authenticity.
 * That supreme caution will be why they didn't say anything until someone else did, just now. And also why they couldn't/wouldn't vouch for the metadata thus far. Finally, they've been verified, apparently, because officials are coming clean. Right?
 * For now, the White House and the State Department are expressing outrage over the images, even as they caution that the United States has not independently authenticated them. 
 * Well, maybe not directly verified, but run by the public and I guess accepted? That's kind of like verification. As for why Qatari-funded activist photos filed with lawyers in a friendly nation clearly in tune with the joint US-Qatari goals, there's no barrier to having verified them, in two months now, when the claim is this big, so big it need to now overshadow Geneva. The consistent choice, week after week - don't get your own copy, don't force yourself to say one way or another whether just who the photos really implicate in what. --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:54, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

I think this will be crucial. Everyone seems to be avoiding what should be one simple part of the verification process. There are two possibilities - okay, three, no, 4 1) everyone just didn't think to get/verify the digital failes and the full metadata while building a case to unseat a sovereign government and make it as "proven" as possible. But as far as they know, it's probably all valid. 1a) it's valid 1b) it's invalid 2) It was recognized that that data weakened their case and so everyone pretends these are 1800s gelatin prints or something. (and most ways the case can be weakened by basic evidence like this will be fatal, IMO, making this probably a supremely unethical type of group avoidance) 3) As I was wondering, outside possibility, they want us to think 2, so they can slap with metadata, true or not, "proving" whatever. 4) We're/I'm wrong and just missing where they cite, or show they considered, the data, and it's at least consistent with the story handed in stapled to the photos. --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:20, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Faking Metadata?
How possible is it to fake the metadata on a digital photo? Say, you take some Libya photos from 2012, make them say Syria 2013, omit that crucial part deliberately, wait for demands to see that data, then "prove" they're legit Syria images? I like to think ahead. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:33, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Branch 215 Victims: A Preview?
Just days before this revelation, a somewhat mysterious image, a likely preview of "Caesar's" stash, was "leaked" through anti-Assad activist channels. !2 or more starved and murdered men (see inset) were shown by an unnamed defector, probably "Caesar," with prisoner numbers and 215 written on their chests. Until there's clarification this is part of the main set, this should remain aside, and because of its special status it deserves a spot either way. What relation is there between the promoters of the preview and the de-classifiers of the Carter-Ruck-Doha-Nice-Face report? Etc. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:40, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Report Analysis
Questions:
 * How many bodies are photographed? It's said some 50,000 photos show about 11,000 victims, which is where "industrial scale" comes in, and implications of government authorship flowing from that. If they aren't from Syria, this is irrelevant. If they are, it might be relevant. But first, are there even 11,000 dead proven here? There's also, as CNN mentioned, "a group of photos of 150 individuals examined in detail by the experts." Is it possible that's all there actually is? Will watch for an answer. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:27, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Media Criticism
Leading language: in the report (a type of media, and the central one here) and the mass media promotion.
 * The report blames the "current Syrian regime," suggesting of course there will be a different government (that won't be called regime) pretty soon here. How does that kind of choice bode for the credibility of these tyrant-paid war crimes prosecutors? Not well, I'd say. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:27, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The prisoners were marked systematically with "a complex numbering system," as CNN put it, suggests cold, smart regimes, with resources and time, claculating their genocide. Surely rebels in Syria could hold, torture, starve, and kill captives, blame others, and even procure the needed markers. But employ a complex numbering system? No way. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:27, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * In fact, It's possible the claims are fake and the photos are of something other than what "Caesar" says. It's possible the claims are based on a core of truth but exaggerated. It's possible, as the Daily Fail reported, that "Syrian regime 'torture' photographs could be the tip of the iceberg," as "human rights experts" warn. And It's possible that iceberg itself is just the tip of ... an iceberg city, man. Only one of those possibilities gets a headline. --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:32, 23 January 2014 (UTC)