International rights group Amnesty International is claiming Syrian security forces committed crimes against humanity in a mid-May crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in Tell Kalakh, a town located near the Lebanese border. The charges are expounded in a 6 June report entitled Crackdown in Syria: Terror in Tell Kalakh. Amnesty officials say the week-long campaign to muzzle dissent in Tell Kalakh was marked by deaths in custody, torture and arbitrary detention. The rights group has been barred from entering Syria since protests erupted nationwide in March. The report's information was obtained through phone interviews with more than 50 people in the end of May and throughout June. “The accounts we have heard from witnesses to events in Tell Kalakh paint a deeply disturbing picture of systematic, targeted abuses to crush dissent,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director, in a press release. “Most of the crimes described in this report would fall within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. But the UN Security Council must first refer the situation in Syria to the Court's Prosecutor." Suspected sniper fire killed at least one man, 24-year-old Ali al-Basha, on the first day of crackdown. Throughout the campaign, according to Amnesty, countless Syrians were detained and subsequently tortured. “Each day [was] the same story,” one anonymous Syrian said in a testimony included in the report. “They tied me up in the shabah position and applied electricity to my body and testicles. Sometimes I screamed very loudly and begged the interrogator to stop. He didn't care.” Nine people, at minimum, died in custody, Amnesty's finding indicate. When family members went to identify the bodies, they claim they were forced to sign documents attributing the deaths to armed thugs. Amnesty is urging Syrian authorities to release all those detained over the past several months of unrest. The group also called on the UN Security Council to respond to the situation with harsh measures. ”The willingness of the international community to take action on Libya in the name of human rights has highlighted its double standards on Syria,” said Luther. Syria remains embroiled in a widespread, grassroots protest movement that demands the ouster of strongman President Bashar al-Assad. Local residents said tanks surrounded the town of Hama on Tuesday in preparation for an assault. Hama was the scene of horrific violence in 1982 when the regime of elder Assad and former president, Hafez, left more than 10,000 dead in the wake of a crackdown on an Islamist rebellion. Despite the 1400 lives lost thus far in Syria's uprising, the protests continue to grow in size and frequency.
