Syria Allows Red Cross Officials to Visit Prison - New York Times
Human rights activists say the Syrian authorities have arrested tens of thousands of people in the past five months of protests against President Bashar al-Assad. The detainees include women and minors, activists say, and they contend that the majority of political prisoners are held in secret detention centers, off limits to Red Cross officials. Campaigners say that prisoners are subject to all manner of torture, and many videos posted <a href="http://www.trading666.com/brand-bags-t1-8.html"><strong>wholesale juicy handbags online</strong></a> online in the past several weeks have shown detainees being assaulted and beaten severely by Syrian armed troops. Last week, when the attorney general of Hama Province announced his resignation to protest the government’s crackdown on demonstrators, he said hundreds had been killed in jails and police stations, many of them by torture. Red Cross delegates visited the prison in Adra, a suburb of Damascus, on Monday, and although most of the inmates there are criminals and not political prisoners, the organization called the visit “an important step forward.” “The Syrian authorities have granted the I.C.R.C. access to a place of detention for the first time,” the group’s president, Jakob Kellenberger, said in a statement issued at the end of a two-day visit to Damascus. “Initially, we will have access to persons detained by the Ministry of the Interior, and we are hopeful that we will soon be able to visit all detainees.” Mr. Kellenberger met with Mr. Assad and the foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, during his visit. The group’s findings were not made public, and Syrian authorities have not revealed the number of detainees, contending that all arrests were legal and that torture did not take place. At the same time as the visit, Syrian troops raided several cities and towns across the country in search of activists and protesters who were involved in planning the uprising, human rights campaigners and residents said. They said that troops also raided homes and combed areas in northern Syria near the Turkish border and in central Syria looking for the attorney general, Adnan Bakkour, whose resignation greatly embarrassed <a href="www.trading666.com"><strong>wholesale fashion lv handbags online from china </strong></a> the government. In a video posted online this week, Mr. Bakkour said security forces had attacked his convoy last Friday in the northern province of Idlib, arguing that four people were killed in the operation and several others wounded. He said he, too, was wounded from shrapnel, but that protest leaders had helped him escape. Omar Idlibi, a spokesman for the Local Coordination Committees, a grass-roots group that organizes and tracks the uprising, said that Mr. Bakkour had left the country and is currently in a safe place. There were reports by other activists saying that Mr. Bakkour had made it to Turkey or Cyprus. Human rights campaigners believe that Mr. Bakkour has enough evidence to take action against Mr. Assad and his government in the International Criminal Court. The Local Committees said that at least five people were killed in raids on Monday: three in Homs, during sweeps to arrest protesters; one in Tal Khalakh, a town in eastern Syria, along the Lebanese-Syria border; and another in the northern province of Idlib during raids on towns there. Activists also said that one person was shot dead by armed forces loyal to the government as he was trying to cross the border in northern Syria to Turkey. Mr. Idlibi also said that several military vehicles raided the neighborhood of Khaldiyeh in Hama, a restive city in central Syria, looking for activists there. The United Nations said in a report last month that at least 2,200 people had been killed since the demonstrations started more than five months ago. The Syrian government, however, disputes the numbers and claims it is facing a foreign conspiracy to divide the country. It says its security forces are battling Islamic armed groups that have killed more than 500 police officers and soldiers since mid-March. Meanwhile, the secretary general of the Arab League, Nabil el-Araby, will visit Syria on Wednesday to relay Arab worries about the continuing bloodshed there, Egypt’s news agency MENA reported on Monday. “The Syrian government told me that it welcomes the visit of the secretary general at any time, and it will probably be this week,” Mr. Araby said from Cairo on Sunday. Also on Sunday, the Syrian <a href="http://www.trading666.com/jeans-Levis-men-jeans-f2-64-c3-103.html"><strong>fashion levis jeans for sale </strong></a> state news agency SANA said that an “armed terrorist gang” had ambushed a bus near Hama, killing nine people, including an officer and five noncommissioned officers.
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