"Pillar of Repression"

The NGO Human Rights Watch today released a detailed report on Syria’s Supreme State Security Court, which was founded 40 years ago during a supposed state of emergency to prosecute those it considered a threat to state security. Human Rights Watch compiled information on the 237 cases known to have been decided by the court between January 2007 and June 2008. The report concludes, “[T]he SSSC’s role has been to prosecute those whom the Syrian authorities do not approve of in trials that lack basic due process guarantees. The SSSC consistently ignores claims by defendants that their confessions were extracted under torture and frequently convicts them on vague and overbroad offenses that essentially criminalize freedom of expression and association.”

Human Rights Watch