UN / SYRIA ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES
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STORY: UN / SYRIA ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES
TRT: 2:41
SOURCE: UNIFEED-UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH /NATS
DATELINE: 21 OCTOBER 2015, NEW YORK CITY / RECENT
RECENT – NEW YORK CITY
1.\tWide shot, exterior UNHQ
21 OCTOBER 2015 NEW YORK CITY
2.\tWide shot, Trusteeship Chamber
3.\tMed shot, dais
4.\tSOUNDBITE (English) Ambassador Harald Braun, Permanent Representative of Germany to the United Nations:
“Ladies and gentleman, the equivalent of a medium sized town has been subjected to enforced disappearance in Syria since the escalation of conflict in the spring of 2011. According to one conservative estimate roughly 65,000 individuals have been brutally snatched from their everyday lives during the last four years often to disappear without a trace and they’ve been snatched from the midst of their families.”
5.\tMed shot, dais
6.\tSOUNDBITE (English) Ambassador Harald Braun, Permanent Representative of Germany to the United Nations:
“And while today the perpetrators of such crime are protected by a regime that has institutionalized systematic human rights abuses against its own population they must and they will eventually be held accountable for their actions.”
7.\tWide shot, Trusteeship Chamber
8.\tSOUNDBITE (English) Nicolette Boehland, human rights lawyer and Amnesty International researcher:
“These enforced disappearances which were carried out by the Syrian government since 2011 have been so widespread and so systematic that Amnesty International concludes they amount to crimes against humanity.”
9.\tWide shot, Trusteeship Chamber
10.\tSOUNDBITE (English) Nicolette Boehland, human rights lawyer and Amnesty International reasearcher:
“The victims of enforced disappearance are held in a nightmarish network of detention centres across Syria where they are made vulnerable to grave human rights abuses. As far as conditions in these prisons the cells are often so overcrowded that detainees are unable to sit down. Disease is rampant, torture is routine and some of the common methods include electric shock, suspension by their wrists, rape and sexual abuse, burning and sleep deprivation. Many die as a result of torture in these horrific conditions.”
11.\tWide shot, Trusteeship Chamber
12.\t SOUNDBITE (English) Nicolette Boehland, human rights lawyer and Amnesty International researcher:
“Family members are left with few and dangerous options to find their loved ones and those who try to inquire with or approach a branch to find out where their loved one is have been penalized by being arrested or disappeared. The thing that most effects family members from what I saw is very acute mental anguish and not knowing whether their relative is dead or alive, worrying they might be being tortured, starved or suffering from diseases.”
13.\tWide shot, Trusteeship Chamber
Ambassador Harald Braun, Permanent Representative of Germany to the United Nations said, “since the escalation of conflict in the spring of 2011, roughly 65,000 individuals have been brutally snatched from their everyday lives often to disappear without a trace.”
At a high-level event today (21 Oct 15), co-hosted by Germany and Amnesty International, Ambassador Baum also said that the equivalent of a medium sized town has been subjected to enforced disappearance in Syria.
He stressed that “while today the perpetrators of such crime are protected by a regime that has institutionalized systematic human rights abuses against its own population, they must and they will eventually be held accountable for their actions.”
Nicolette Boehland, a human rights lawyer working as a researcher with Amnesty International since 2014 said, these enforced disappearances carried out by the Syrian government have been “so widespread and so systematic that Amnesty International concludes they amount to crimes against humanity.”
Boehland added that victims of enforced disappearance “are held in a nightmarish network of detention centres across Syria where they are made vulnerable to grave human rights abuses. As far as conditions in these prisons the cells are often so overcrowded that detainees are unable to sit down.”
She went on to say, “Disease is rampant, torture is routine and some of the common methods include electric shock, suspension by their wrists, rape and sexual abuse, burning and sleep deprivation. Many die as a result of torture in these horrific conditions.”
Family members are left with few and dangerous options to find their loved ones and those who have, “have been penalized by being arrested or disappeared” and “the thing that most effects family members from what I saw is very acute mental anguish and not knowing whether their relative is dead or alive, worrying they might be being tortured, starved or suffering from diseases,” Boehland pointed out.
Nicolette Boehland presented today the key findings of her report on enforced disappearances in Syria over the last four months. The full report, entitled “Between the Prison and the Grave”, will be released by Amnesty International on November 5, 2015.
Boehland has lived and worked in the Middle East for the last five years.