{"id":175556,"date":"2025-12-04T23:05:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T23:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/175556\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T23:05:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T23:05:06","slug":"a-brutal-legacy-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/175556\/","title":{"rendered":"a brutal legacy \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A year after the brutal, seemingly unassailable regime of Bashir al Assad crumbled like a house of cards, for the first time in the country\u2019s history Syrians are next week preparing to publicly mark UN-designated Human Rights Day. Welcomed back into the mainstream of the international community, Syria, now led by Islamist militia leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, is a very different place, though the shadow of Assad\u2019s legacy weighs heavily.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">An important new light on the bloody inner workings of his security and intelligence agencies has been cast by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/world\/middle-east\/2025\/12\/04\/syrias-disappeared-leak-of-assad-torture-photos-reveals-fate-of-thousands\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/world\/middle-east\/2025\/12\/04\/syrias-disappeared-leak-of-assad-torture-photos-reveals-fate-of-thousands\/\">a leaked trove of 174,000 documents<\/a> from the old regime\u2019s files, including some 33,000 pictures of emaciated cadavers, 10,200 of them detainees of the regime. These have come to light courtesy of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), of which The Irish Times and 24 media outlets are partners, and will help the thousands of traumatised relatives still desperately trying to trace their disappeared loved ones. And, hopefully, help to bring some of those responsible to trial.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Many of the bodies bear clear signs of torture, including emaciation, bruising, bloodied and swollen faces, bloodied body parts, bandaged limbs, visible lacerations and missing teeth. Nearly half are naked and about three-quarters show signs of starvation. During the period reflected in the files, many detainees were kept for no plausible reason, some swept up in security dragnets, at checkpoints or because they came from a town considered rebellious.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The files reveal the chilling meticulousness of Assad\u2019s security bureaucrats charged with recording the workings of their killing machine and reporting on this to the courts. Like the Nazi guards\u2019 records in the death camps, or in Cambodia the Khmer Rouge dossiers in the torture house of Toul Sleng, these more than vividly reflect the blind loyalty, and sense of absolute impunity, of the regime\u2019s minions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Assad, now reportedly living under asylum in Russia, is, unfortunately, well away from the reach of Syrian or international justice. He presided over Syria during the country\u2019s 13-year bloody civil war during which about half a million people were killed , according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights ,including more than 200,00 civilians at the hands of the regime and more than 160,000 were forcibly \u201cdisappeared\u201d by the state or its agents between 2011 and last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Syria\u2019s government, which has promised to help, and set up two commissions to investigate the old regime\u2019s record, has still not put an end to disappearances \u2013 nearly 100 this year \u2013 and is struggling to stop violent sectarian clashes with the Druze and Alawite communities. Israeli bombing raids in the south and occupation of Golan make normalising regional relations impossible. Syria\u2019s transition remains difficult.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A year after the brutal, seemingly unassailable regime of Bashir al Assad crumbled like a house of cards,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2287,42,3410,14396,1196,96161,43,47062,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-175556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-conflict","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-lebanon","12":"tag-middle-east","13":"tag-mideast","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-syria","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}