GRAPHIC: Alleged Turkish-backed faction tortures Syrian man using Assad methods

Hamoud Al-Mousa, the founder of the ‘Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently’ campaign that exposes the Syrian regime and ISIS’ crimes in Raqqa, northeast of Syria, published a video of an armed Syrian faction that opposes the Assad regime violently beating and humiliating a Syrian man.

One of the armed men who appears in the video is wearing a shirt that bears the Turkish flag.

In the video, the armed men are taking turns beating up a Syrian man after he was accused of theft. The man however can be heard denying the allegations and swearing that he did not steal anything.

للأسف النسخة الأسدية انتقلت للفصائل المسلحة جميعها، فيديو لفصائل من الجيش الحر "المدعوم من تركيا" وهي تقوم بتعذيب مدني "بتهمة تشليح وقطع طرقات"، بغض النظر اذا كانت التهمة صحيحة او لا طريقة التعذيب وحشية مرفوضة، مليون طريقة ثانية لتخلي المعتقل يعترف. #الجيش_الحر #الفصائل_التركية pic.twitter.com/p9JkoGdjqs

— Hamoud Al-Mousa (@hamoud_almousa) November 24, 2018

The man was beaten up the same way officers torture people in Assad’s prisons, by lifting one’s legs after tying them together and then severely beating the feet using a stick or a whip. The armed men were also kicking him and punching him.

Mousa also noted that other factions, like Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Al-Nusra), were also committing plenty of violations.

He also published a video, which shows one of the group members torturing and beating a Syrian man who is shackled using a metal chain and a rope.

The Syrian Human Rights Network confirmed that 933 people have been killed because of torture since the beginning of this year, 911 of which were by the hands of Syrian regime forces. The report noted that the Syrian regime deliberately forced the families of victims of torture to sign documents stating that their relatives have died of natural causes, without letting them see the bodies of their dead children.

Since the beginning of this year, the Syrian regime has begun to send lists of the death of its detainees and to request the civil registry departments to register them dead, without mentioning the date of death.

While international and human rights organizations recognize that the enforced disappearances in Syria accounts to more than 80,000 cases, the number of detainees in Syria exceeds 250,000, according to various statistics, the last of which dates to the end of last year. The Syrian Network for Human Rights confirmed that there are currently 220,000 detainees in the regime prisons.