Marah al-Bukai
As normal life gradually begins to return to northeastern Syria, the effects of the crimes committed by ISIS terrorists are unfolding to the world, after the US-led Coalition, with Kurdish fighting forces, managed to liberate the land that ISIS seized for a short period of time during the nine-year-long Syrian war.
The media recently reported that a 50-meter-deep hole was discovered in the countryside of the city of Raqqa, which was controlled by ISIS from 2013 to 2015. The hole was used as a mass grave for the victims of ISIS and other extremist groups that took control of the region.
The site is called "al-Houta", and it was known as a beautiful natural site before ISIS militants turned it into a place to take revenge on defenseless civilians who refused the presence of radicals in the region, and the pre-Islamic and terrifying way of life they tried to impose when they occupied villages and cities, abused their people, insulted women. and recruited children.
The al-Houta hole – one of 20 mass graves discovered in the city of Raqqa and its countryside in the locations occupied by ISIS – is solid evidence of war crimes committed by extremists, who will be held accountable whether they are parties or individuals, in pursuit of achieving transitional justice, which is the basis for the return of civil peace to Syria following the horrific wars it has witnessed.
Human Rights Watch sent a drone inside the pit to take more photos after satellite images detected bodies floating on the surface of the water in the hole. An investigation into the identities of the bodies which were recently dumped in the hole was initiated, a long time after the end of ISIS control over the region.
Initial investigations with citizens in the area indicated that ISIS threatened to throw everyone who violated its orders into this hole, which confirms that it was used as a mass grave for the victims of the organization, and later for victims of the groups who came after it and controlled Raqqa.
Enforced disappearances in places of war, martial law and armed groups outside the law, or those that have occurred as a result of the state's systematic terrorism, concerns human rights organizations and international bodies, especially the United Nations. Knowing the truth behind the crimes committed as a result of torture in detention centers, field executions without trials, or enforced disappearance of persons is a human right enshrined in the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their annexes.
In Syria, people have been subjected to the worst violations, whether by the Ba'ath authoritarian regime and collaborating sectarian militias, or by terrorist groups, most of which were formed by foreign extremists. The rights of victims of violations must be restored through an independent judicial path that accompanies the political process. Appealing to a fair and transparent judiciary that holds perpetrators of crimes accountable and restores some of their rights to their owners will be the only way to protect Syrians from falling into the trap of reprisals and revenge, in the event that the human justice of the victims and their families is not achieved.
The United Nations has created a database on the crimes committed, and a neutral and independent committee approved by the United Nations General Assembly in 2016 is following an international mechanism to facilitate the investigation of grave violations of international law committed in Syria since 2011. The Commission has over a million documents, including video recordings, satellite images, videos, and testimonies of the victims of the Bashar al-Assad regime, who was accused of carrying out state-sponsored terrorism, including acts of torture, rape, and extrajudicial executions.
The trial of the two former Syrian intelligence officers detained since February 2019 in Germany is the first in the world pertaining to violations resulting from state terrorism, and the two accused were brought to justice on April 20th, 2020 in the German court in the city of Koblenz.
As for the operation carried out by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) last week with the support of Global Coalition aircraft in the eastern countryside of Deir ez-Zor, it succeeded in capturing the “black box” of ISIS and the successor of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Abdullah Qardash, which constitutes an advanced step to collect more information in the case of ISIS' violations documents, and bringing all of the remaining militants of the group to justice.