Syrian forces torture children, claims human rights group

SECURITY forces in Syria have detained and tortured children – some as young as 13 – in an attempt to quash protests, a human rights group has claimed.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch’s report said it has documented at least 12 cases of children detained under “inhumane” conditions and tortured, as well as children shot while in their homes or on the street.

Fresh clashes have erupted between regime troops and rebels in the south of country today.

Fighting in Jassem, in the southern province of Daraa, saw the death of at least one soldier and five wounded, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Syrian conflict has grown more militarized in recent months as army defectors join the uprising against President Bashar Assad. The insurgency has in turn brought a heavier regime assault on areas where the defectors are holed up.

“Children have not been spared the horror of Syria’s crackdown,” said Lois Whitman, children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “Syrian security forces have killed, arrested, and tortured children in their homes, their schools, or on the streets. In many cases, security forces have targeted children just as they have targeted adults.”

The report quoted a 16-year-old boy from the town of Tal Kalakh near the Lebanon border as saying that he was detained for eight months during which he was held in seven different detention centers, as well as the Homs Central Prison.

The boy, whom HRW referred to as Alaa, said that after he was asked in how many protests he participated, they “took me in handcuffs to another cell and cuffed my left hand to the ceiling. They left me hanging there for about seven hours, with about one-and-a-half to two centimeters between me and the floor I was standing on my toes.”

In another case, the parents of a 13-year-old boy from the coastal city of Latakia, told HRW that in December security officers arrested him and held him for nine days. According to his parents, he was accused of burning photos of Assad, vandalizing security forces’ cars, and inciting other children to protest.

Security officers burned him with cigarettes on his neck and hands, the parents said, and threw boiling water on his body.

An adult former detainee told the rights group that some children were raped while in detention.

Also today, activists reported protests across Syria, including the central province of Hama and Homs, the northern region of Idlib, southern towns and villages as well as areas around the capital Damascus.

The Observatory said more than 20,000 marched in the streets of the southern villages of Dael and Nawa where security forces opened fire to disperse the masses. The report could not be independently confirmed.

The LCC and the Observatory said security forces killed at least two people in the Damascus suburb of Rankous.

Many of the protesters commemorated the 1982 Hama massacre.

The assault was ordered by Assad’s father and predecessor Hafez Assad, following an armed rebellion by the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group in the city.

Amnesty International has estimated that between 10,000 and 25,000 people were killed in the 1982 siege, though conflicting figures exist and the Syrian government has never made an official estimate.

The latest protests and clashes came a day after diplomats failed to reach agreement on a U.N. resolution aimed at ending the bloodshed in Syria, leaving discussions in limbo pending consultations with their home governments.

Envoys said that yet another text is being drawn up for them to send to their capitals for consideration.