Massamedia verantwoordelijk voor doden onder klanten

In de VS spreekt men n.a.v. de Trump administratie over 'Trump Hypersensitive Unexplained Disorder' (THUD), een aandoening die wordt veroorzaakt door het regeringsbeleid van Trump, uiteraard dik gerelateerd aan de leugen die men 'Russiagate' noemt....... Mensen die aan deze aandoening lijden hebben last van een groot aantal symptomen, zoals: overeten, hoofdpijn, flauwvallen, chronische nekpijn, depressie en zelfs suikerproblemen plus hartklachten...... (voor een volledige lijst, zie het hieronder opgenomen artikel van Caitlin Johnstone)

Aan voorgaande aandoeningen lijdt men in de VS al decennia lang, niet zo vreemd als je ziet hoe inhumaan men daar met het grote arme deel van de bevolking omgaat, -hoe men omgaat met wapenbezit, -hoe men omgaat met kleurlingen, -hoe men de ene na de andere illegale oorlog voert, -de enorme prestatiedwang in de VS maatschappij en zaken als -de prijs voor gezonde voeding (arme gezinnen zijn altijd goedkoper uit als ze eten halen bij zaken als McDonald's, i.p.v. gezonde voeding uit de winkel of van de markt).... 

Buiten wapenbezit, zijn deze zaken overigens ook van toepassing op veel andere westerse bevolkingen, zelfs in Nederland lijden veel mensen aan de hiervoor benoemde gezondheidsklachten......

Johnstone betoogt terecht dat de reguliere massamedia verantwoordelijk zijn voor doden, niet alleen met hun onvoorwaardelijke steun aan het oneindig illegaal oorlogvoeren door de VS, maar ook voor het bewaren (en bewaken) van de ijskoude, inhumane neoliberale status quo, door deze dag in dag uit als zaligmakend te prediken..... Daarmee propageren deze media de klassenmaatschappij die van nooit weggeweest weer massaal wordt omarmt in de VS (en andere westerse landen), ja zelfs door mensen die arm zijn, daar de media hen voorhouden dat ze volgend jaar wel eens schathemelrijk zouden kunnen zijn.... Ofwel het inleveren van de leugen dat het leven na de dood veel beter zou zijn dan het leven zelf, zoals o.a. door christenen gepropageerd, wordt meer en meer ingewisseld voor het gehersenspoelde 'kansdenken', waarvoor de reguliere massamedia en veel politici verantwoordelijk zijn.....

Vergeet niet dat je in de VS aanwijsbaar langer kan leven als je geld hebt, buiten de (gedwongen) voedselkeuze voor arme burgers, is ook de medische hulpverlening voor de welgestelden tientallen procenten beter dan die voor de grote onderlaag van arme mensen in de VS, van wie niet zelden mensen vroegtijdig overlijden aan bijvoorbeeld kanker, daar ze de therapieën niet kunnen betalen....... Buiten de 50 miljoen VS burgers die afhankelijk zijn van voedselbonnen, zijn er vele miljoenen meer, die zelfs met 2 banen niet rond kunnen komen (een zaak die hier ook meer en meer voorkomt, we volgen de VS dan ook in het asociale neoliberale VS beleid.......)

Mainstream Media Is Now Killing People Directly

by Caitlin Johnstone

A new, updated data set is now available on a psychological phenomenon that has been labeled "Trump Anxiety Disorder" or "Trump Hypersensitive Unexplained Disorder," and it says that the phenomenon only got worse in 2018. The disorder is described as a specific type of anxiety in which symptoms "were specific to the election of Trump and the resultant unpredictable sociopolitical climate," and according to the 2018 surveys Americans are feeling significantly more stressed by the future of their country and the current political environment than they were last year.

Pacific Standard reports as follows:

As the possibility of a Hillary Clinton victory began to slip away—and the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency became more and more certain—the contours of the new age of American anxiety began to take shape. In a 2017 column, Washington Postcolumnist Dana Milbank described this phenomenon as "Trump Hypertensive Unexplained Disorder":

"Overeating. Headaches. Fainting. Irregular heartbeat. Chronic neck pain. Depression. Irritable bowel syndrome. Tightness in the chest. Shortness of breath. Teeth grinding. Stomach ulcer. Indigestion. Shingles. Eye twitching. Nausea. Irritability. High blood sugar. Tinnitus. Reduced immunity. Racing pulse. Shaking limbs. Hair loss. Acid reflux. Deteriorating vision. Stroke. Heart attack. It was a veritable organ recital".

Two years later, the physiological effects of the Trump administration aren't going away. A growing body of research has tracked the detrimental impacts of Trump-related stress on broad segments of the American population, from young adults to women, to racial and LGBT communities.

The results aren't good.

Pacific Standard

✔@PacificStand

“A growing body of research tracked the detrimental impacts of Trump-related stress on broad segments of the American population, from young adults to women, to racial and LGBT communities.” @jaredbkeller on the biological response to living under Trump. https://bit.ly/2TRhIWF 

9

11:00 PM - Jan 15, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

Research Suggests Trump's Election Has Been Detrimental to Many Americans' Mental Health

Particularly that of the country's most marginalized groups.

psmag.com

I do not for one second doubt that Americans are feeling more stressed and suffering more health-degrading symptoms as a result than they were prior to Trump's election. But Pacific Standard and its "growing body of research" ignore the most obvious and significant culprit behind this phenomenon which is tearing people's health to shreds: the mass media which has been deliberately fanning the flames of Trump panic.

The always excellent Moon of Alabama blog has just published a sarcasm-laden piecedocumenting the many, many aggressive maneuvers that this administration has made against the interests of Russia, from pushing for more NATO funding to undermining Russia's natural gas interests to bombing Syria to sanctioning Russian oligarchs to dangerous military posturing. And yet the trending, most high-profile stories about Trump today all involve painting him as a Putin puppet who is working to destroy America by taking a weak stance against an alarming geopolitical threat. This has had the effect of manufacturing demand for even more dangerous escalations against a nuclear superpower who just so happens to be a longtime target of US intelligence agencies.

If the mass media were in the business of reporting facts, there would be a lot less "Putin's puppet" talk and a lot more "Hey, maybe we should avoid senseless escalations which could end all life on earth" talk among news media consumers. But there isn't, because the mass media is not in the business of reporting facts, it's in the business of selling narratives. Even if those narratives are so shrill and stress-inducing that they imperil the health of their audience.

Trump is clearly not a Russian asset, he's a facilitator of America's permanent unelected government just like his predecessors, and indeed as far as actual policies and administration behavior goes he's not that much different from Barrack Obama and George W Bush. Hell, for all his demagogic anti-immigrant speech Trump hasn't even caught up to Obama's peak ICE deportation years. If the mass media were in the business of reporting facts, people would be no more worried about this administration than they were about the previous ones, because when it comes to his administration's actual behavior, he's just as reliable an upholder of the establishment-friendly status quo as his predecessors.

(mijn excuus, deze afbeelding past niet helemaal op de pagina, krijg het niet op orde, voor de volledige lijst zie Caitlin Johnstone of klik op de afbeelding)

View image on Twitter

Moon of Alabama@MoonofA

New on MoA:
Putin Asks And Trump Delivers -
A List Of All The Good Things Trump Did For Russiahttps://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/01/putin-asks-and-trump-delivers-here-is-a-list-of-all-the-good-things-trump-did-for-russia.html …

225

8:15 PM - Jan 15, 2019

Used to be that the US mass media only killed people indirectly, by facilitating establishment war agendas in repeating government agency propaganda as objective fact and promulgating narratives that manufacture support for a status quo which won't even give Americans health insurance or safe drinking water. Now they're skipping the middle man and killing them directly by psychologically brutalizing them so aggressively that it ruins their health, all to ensure that Democrats support war and adore the US intelligence community.

They do this for a reason, of course. The Yellow Vests protests in France have continued unabated for their ninth consecutive week, a decentralized populist uprising resulting from ordinary French citizens losing trust in their institutions and the official narratives which uphold them. The social engineers responsible for controlling the populace of the greatest military power on the planet are watching France closely, and understand deeply what is at stake should they fail to control the narrative and herd ordinary Americans into supporting US government institutions. Right now they've got Republicans cheering on the White House and Democrats cheering on the US intelligence community, but that could all change should something happen which causes them to lose control over the thoughts that Americans think about their rulers.

Propaganda is the single most overlooked and under-appreciated aspect of human society. The ability of those in power to manipulate the ways ordinary people think, act and vote has allowed for an inverted totalitarianism which turns the citizenry into their own prison wardens, allowing those with real power to continue doing as they please unhindered by the interests of the common man.

The only thing that will lead to real change is the people losing trust in corrupt institutions and rising like lions against them. That gets increasingly likely as those institutions lose control of the narrative, and with trust in the mass media at an all-time low, populist uprisings restoring power to the people in France, and media corporations acting increasingly weird and insecure, that looks more and more likely by the day.

_________________________

The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet new merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.

Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Caitlin Johnstone | January 16, 2019 at 2:35 am |

Tags: #Trump, media, MSM, propaganda | Categories: Article | URL: https://wp.me/p9tj6M-1vG

Charlottesville: Trump haalt antifascisten toch onderuit.........

Nadat Trump in een voor hem gemaakte tekst afstand nam van de neonazi's die hem al als Führer vereerden, gaf hij gisteren alsnog de antifascisten mede de schuld van de ellende in Charlottesville......

Charlottesville, waar één van de neonazi's een terreuraanslag pleegde, door met een auto op vreedzame demonstranten in te rijden en daarbij een vrouw vermoordde....... Vanaf het jaar 2000 tot 2016, voerden deze neonazi's in de VS 26 aanvallen uit en begingen maar liefst 49 moorden....... De beweging die zich verzet tegen het neonazi-geweld, Antifa heeft bij mijn weten nooit één dodelijk slachtoffers gemaakt.......

Ook bij de protesten tegen de Dakota Acces Pipeline (DAPL), waar de oorspronkelijke bewoners* terecht protesteerden tegen het aanleggen van een oliepijpleiding, over/onder voor hen respectievelijk heilige grond en water, waren deze neonazi's met geweld bezig tegen de vreedzame demonstranten....... Me dunkt, ook gezien de geschiedenis van WOII, een nobele zaak: vechten tegen deze neonazi's, die niet anders zijn dan inhumane psychopathische schoften, die anderen het licht in de ogen niet gunnen.......

Gisteren in het megasuffe Mediaforum op Radio1, Catherine Keyl, deze hufter stelde dat Trump niet op de hoogte was van de neonazi's in Charlottesville.... Wel Keyl, Trump zelf heeft jou ongelijk gegeven! Keyl ging overigens fiks tekeer tegen Antifa en stelde dat deze even gewelddadig waren...... Alsof Antifa al vele dodelijke slachtoffers heeft gemaakt...... Uiteraard noemde ze het inrijden door een neonazi op vreedzame demonstranten geen terreuraanslag, dat laatste woord kwam in haar gezwets niet voor.........

Op de Post Online durfde Sietske Bergsma te stellen, dat ze liever met de neonazi's te maken had, dan met de mensen van Antifa...... Alsof de laatsten verantwoordelijk zijn voor 49 doden deze eeuw, of zelfs voor meer doden dan de neonazi's.......... Alsof de antifascisten een terreuraanslag pleegden, i.p.v. de neonazi's..... Eén ding is zeker, Bergsma is een aanhanger van het fascisme, dat heeft ze uit en te na aangegeven!!

Langzaam maar zeker weet het fascisme steeds meer aanhang te winnen onder de bevolking in de VS en de EU, lullig genoeg schijnt iedereen dat normaal te vinden. Het is onze plicht te vechten tegen het fascisme, een plicht die voortvloeit uit de vreselijke terreur die Duitsland en Italië voor en tijdens WOII op miljoenen hebben doen neerdalen, o.a. met een genocide op de joden, Roma en Sinti.........

Hier een korte reactie van Moon of Alabama op het gebeuren in Charlottesville (onder het artikel kan u klikken voor een vertaling):

Charlottesville: What You Wish Upon Others, You Wish Upon Yourself

By Moon Of Alabama

August 14, 2017 "Information Clearing House" - U.S. "liberals" cuddle fascists and right-wing religious extremists in Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela and elsewhere.

      

But when similar movements appear on their own streets they are outraged.

The person in the center on the above picture drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters in Charlottesville killing one and wounding several.


Politicians and media hail such persons when they appear, often hired by the CIA, to overthrow the government of some foreign country. They condemn the same mindset and actions at home. But glorification of right-wing violence elsewhere hands justification to right-wing groups at home.

Above: Fascist torch march in Kiev January 28 2017. Then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Republican Senator McCain, The New York Times, the Washington Post and many "liberals" supported the above nazis.

Above: Fascist torch march in Charlottesville, August 11 2017. Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Republican Senator McCain, the New York Times, the Washington Post and many "liberals" condemned the above nazis.


You can not have only one of these. 


To claim, as "liberals" do now, that such marches as in Charlottesville, "is not what and who we are", is a lie. Ask people from outside the U.S. how the empire appears and acts towards them.


The U.S. uses fascism, religious extremism, torture, targeted killing and many other vile instruments of power in its quest for global dominance. All of these methods and ideologies, all of them, will one day come home.


This article was first published by Moon Of Alabama 


Click for Spanish, German, Dutch, Danish, French, translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load.
=============================

Oekraïense neonazi's herdenken SS divisie (onder goedkeuring van de corrupte juntaleider Porosjenko en de EU!)

* De oorspronkelijke bewoners van Noord-Amerika (plus die in Midden- en Zuid-Amerika) die middels de grootste genocide ooit bijna werden uitgeroeid......... (waarbij een aantal stammen daadwerkelijk werden uitgemoord........)

Zie ook:
'Neonazi terreuraanslag in VS, westerse media spreken 'op hun best' over 'een daad van agressie......''

'Charlottesville: twee schuldigen? Of is het de taak van eenieder te vechten tegen fascisme?'

'Charlottesville: wat er fout ging voor de verzamelde gewelddadige en bewapende fascisten..........'

'Before Trump, Clinton Democrats Invoked the Term ‘Alt-Left’ to Demonize Critics'

'Among the Racists' (met mogelijkheid tot vertaling)

Mijn excuus voor de vormgeving.

'De evolutie van politiestaat VS o.a. te zien in het buitenspel zetten van burgerrechten in steden als Boston en Charlottesville'

Amnesty claimt zonder bewijs 13.000 moorden middels massa executies in 'gevangenis Assad.........' Deel 2

Op 13 februari jl. publiceerde ik al een bericht, over de claim van Amnesty International, dat 13.000* mensen in grote hoeveelheden tegelijk werden geëxecuteerd in de Syrische Saydhaya gevangenis. Ik nam toen een artikel over gepubliceerd op Information Clearing House (ICH), geschreven door Moon of Alabama, die uitlegde, dat de hele claim van Amnesty op drijfzand was gebaseerd**.

Vandaag nog een artikel van Moon of Alabama op ICH, over diezelfde claim van Amnesty, die dit keer door de Britse ex-ambassadeur voor Irak, Peter Ford (die de bewuste gevangenis kent), totaal in de grond wordt geboord.......

Hier het artikel, dat als interview door Sputnik werd uitgezonden. Onder het artikel vindt u het hele interview met Ford (25 minuten), let wel, het is geen video, maar een geluidsbestand (van een op de radio uitgezonden interview).

Onder het artikel kan u klikken voor een 'Dutch vertaling':

Amnesty Report on Syrian Prison Deaths Questioned by Ex UK Ambassador to Syria

Amnesty International's latest report on mass extrajudicial killings in Syria would not stand scrutiny, according to former British ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford.

February 19, 2017 "Information Clearing House" - On February 7, the organization issued an explosive report titled ‘Human Slaughterhouse, Mass Hangings and Extermination at Saydhaya prison, Syria,' alleging that the Syrian authorities were responsible of killing 13,000 opponents of President Bashar Assad at the Saydnaya prison on the outskirts of Damascus.

In an interview with Sputnik, Ford pointed out that it was interesting how the report was coincidentally released after the Syrian city of Aleppo was liberated by the government forces two months ago, after successful negotiations in Astana and as it appears that Syria is coming closer to a political solution for the ongoing war.

"It's very strange after this report has been over a year in gestation — you have to ask, why now?" He said.

According to the former Ambassador, there is a number of reasons why the report puts into question the credibility of the human rights organisation. Apart from the fact that it was based on interviews with anonymous witnesses and doesn't provide a hint of evidence, those nameless sources were wrong on ‘basic information', and that naturally puts to doubt the veracity of other claims.

The retired British diplomat had visited Saydnaya numerous times as he served in Damascus from 2003 to 2006. According to Ford, the prison was too small to contain ten to twenty thousand prisoners at one time, contrary to what Amnesty said in the report.

"Ten to twenty thousand is a fair-sized town." He said in an interview. "The building which I saw at Saydnaya could not possibly accommodate more than ten percent of those numbers."

The human rights group also quoted its sources as saying that Saydnaya became the main political prison in 2011, which was just as false.

Click for Spanish, German, Dutch, Danish, French, translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load.

* Zo gedegen, dat Amnesty sprak over 5.000 tot 13.000 doden, me dunkt nogal een verschil, 'maar goed....'

** Zie: 'Amnesty claimt zonder bewijs 13.000 moorden middels massa executies in 'gevangenis Assad.........' (In de kop stond een fout: gevangenissen i.p.v. gevangenis)

Voor meer berichten n.a.v. het bovenstaande, klik op één van de labels, die u onder dit bericht terug kan vinden.

Amnesty claimt zonder bewijs 13.000 moorden middels massa executies in 'gevangenis Assad.........'

Amnesty International maakte vorige week bekend, dat in de gevangenissen 'van Assad' mensen zijn vermoord, middels massa executies. Echter het bewijs voor die zaken ontbreekt.....

Amnesty ontpopt zich de laatste jaren meer en meer als een organisatie, die het uiterst agressieve neokolonialisme van de VS (met de NAVO aan de hand), steunt....... AI is een organisatie die ook op subsidie van overheden draait, dan wel bevolkt wordt door aankomende politici of ex-politici, tja, wiens brood men eet of at.........

Waar was AI toen de 'gematigde', door het westen gesteunde terreurgroepen tekeer gingen op de straten en in de huizen van de bewoners in Oost-Aleppo?? Een terreur waarvan AI allang de getuigenissen had kunnen optekenen in Oost-Aleppo en de vluchtelingenkampen........

Afgelopen woensdag op Information Clearing House het volgende artikel over de beschuldigingen van Amnesty International, geschreven door Moon of Alabama (onder het artikel kan u klikken voor een 'Dutch' vertaling, dit neemt wel wat tijd in beslag):

Amnesty Claims Mass Executions In Syria, Provides Zero Proof

By Moon Of Alabama

February 07, 2017 "Information Clearing House" - "Moon Of Alabama" -A new Amnesty International report claims that the Syrian government hanged between 5,000 and 13,000 prisoners in a military prison in Syria. The evidence for that claim is flimsy, based on hearsay of anonymous people outside of Syria. The numbers themselves are extrapolations that no scientist or court would ever accept. It is tabloid reporting and fiction style writing from its title "Human Slaughterhouse" down to the last paragraph.

But the Amnesty report is still not propagandish enough for the anti-Syrian media. Inevitably only the highest number in the range Amnesty claims is quoted. For some even that is not yet enough. The Associate Press agency, copied by many outlets, headlines: Report: At least 13,000 hanged in Syrian prison since 2011:

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian authorities have killed at least 13,000 people since the start of the 2011 uprising in mass hangings at a prison north of Damascus known to detainees as "the slaughterhouse," Amnesty International said in a report Tuesday.

How does "at least 13,000" conforms to an already questionable report which claims "13,000" as the top number of a very wide range?

Here is a link to the report.

Before we look into some details this from the "Executive Summary":

From December 2015 to December 2016, Amnesty International researched the patterns, sequence and scale of violations carried out at Saydnaya Military Prison (Saydnaya). In the course of this investigation, the organization interviewed 31 men who were detained at Saydnaya, four prison officials or guards who previously worked at Saydnaya, three former Syrian judges, three doctors who worked at Tishreen Military Hospital, four Syrian lawyers, 17 international and national experts on detention in Syria and 22 family members of people who were or still are detained at Saydnaya.

On the basis of evidence from people who worked within the prison authorities at Saydnaya and witness testimony from detainees, Amnesty International estimates that between 5,000 and 13,000 people were extrajudicially executed at Saydnaya between September 2011 and December 2015.

There are several difficulties with this report.

1.           Most of the witnesses are identified as opposition figures and "former" officials who do not live in Syria. Some are said to have been remotely interviewed in Syria but it is not clear if those were living in government or insurgent held areas. Page 9:  

The majority of these interviews took place in person in southern Turkey. The remaining interviews were conducted by telephone or through other remote means with interviewees still in Syria, or with individuals based in Lebanon, Jordan, European countries and the USA.

It is well known that the Syrian insurgency is financed with several billion dollars per years from foreign state governments. It runs sophisticated propaganda operations. These witnesses all seem to have interests in condemning the Syrian government. Not once is an attempt made to provide a possibly divergent view. Amnesty found the persons it questioned by contacting international NGOs like itself and known foreign financed opposition (propaganda) groups:

These groups include Urnammu for Justice and Human Rights, the Syrian Network for Human Rights, and the Syrian Institute for Justice and Accountability.

2.         The numbers Amnesty provides are in a very wide range. None are documented in lists or similar exhibits. They are solely based on hearsay and guesstimates of two witnesses:

People who worked within the prison authorities at Saydnaya told Amnesty International that extrajudicial executions related to the crisis in Syria first began in September 2011. Since that time, the frequency with which they have been carried out has varied and increased. For the first four months, it was usual for between seven and 20 people to be executed every 10-15 days. For the following 11 months, between 20 and 50 people were executed once a week, usually on Monday nights. For the subsequent six months, groups of between 20 and 50 people were executed once or twice a week, usually on Monday and/or Wednesday nights. Witness testimony from detainees suggests that the executions were conducted at a similar – or even higher – rate at least until December 2015. Assuming that the death rate remained the same as the preceding period, Amnesty International estimates that between 5,000 and 13,000 people were extrajudicially executed at Saydnaya between September 2011 and December 2015.

From "between x and y", "once or twice a week", "suggests" and "assuming" the headline numbers are simply extrapolated in footnote 40 in a  back-of-the-envelope calculation; "If A were true then B would be X":

These estimates were based on the following calculations. If between seven and 20 were killed every 10-15 days from September to December 2011, the total figure would be between 56 people and 240 people for that period. If between 20 and 50 were killed every week between January and November 2012, the total figure would be between 880 and 2,200 for that period. If between 20 and 50 people were killed in 222 execution sessions (assuming the executions were carried out twice a week twice a month and once a week once a month) between December 2012 and December 2015, the total figure would be between 4,400 and 11,100 for that period. These calculations produce a minimum figure of 5,336, rounded down to the nearest thousand as 5,000, and 13,540, rounded down to the nearest thousand as 13,000.

3.         I will not go into the details of witness statements on which the report is build. They seem at least exaggerated and are not verifiable at all. In the end it is pure hearsay on which Amnesty sets it conclusions. One example from page 25:

“Hamid”, a former military officer when he was arrested in 2012, recalled the sounds he heard at night during an execution:
"There was a sound of something being pulled out – like a piece of wood, I’m not sure – and then you would hear the sound of them being strangled… If you put your ears on the floor, you could hear the sound of a kind of gurgling. This would last around 10 minutes… We were sleeping on top of the sound of people choking to death. This was normal for me then."

A court might accept 'sound of "I'm not sure" "kind of gurgling" noise through concrete' as proof that a shower was running somewhere. But as proof of executions?

Of all the witnesses Amnesty says it interviewed only two, a former prison official and a former judge, who describe actual executions (page 25). From the wording of their statements it is unclear if they have witnessed any hangings themselves or just describe something they have been told of.

4.       The numbers of people Amnesty claims were executed are - at best - a wild ass guess. How come that Amnesty can name only very few of those? On page 30 of its report it says:

Former detainees from the red building at Saydnaya provided Amnesty International with the names of 59 individuals who they witnessed being taken from their cells in the afternoon, being told that they were being transferred to civilian prisons in Syria. The evidence contained in this report strongly suggests that in fact, these individuals were extrajudicially executed.

and:

Former prison guards and a former prison official from Saydnaya also provided Amnesty International with the names of 36 detainees who had been extrajudicially executed in Saydnaya since 2011.

Those 95, some of whom may have been "executed" - or not, are the only ones Amnesty claims to be able to name. That is less than 1-2% of the reports central claim of 5,000 to 13,000 executed. All those witnesses could provide no more details of persons allegedly killed?

Amnesty acknowledges that its numbers are bogus. Under the headline "Documented Deaths" on page 40 it then adds additional names and numbers to those above but these are not from executions:

the exact number of deaths in Saydnaya is impossible to specify. However, the Syrian Network for Human Rights has verified and shared with Amnesty International the names of 375 individuals who have died in Saydnaya as a result of torture and other ill-treatment between March 2011 and October 2016. Of these, 317 were civilians at the time of their arrest, 39 were members of the Syrian military and 19 were members of non-state armed groups. In the course of the research for this report, Amnesty International obtained the names of 36 additional individuals who died as a result of torture and other ill-treatment in Saydnaya. These names were provided to Amnesty International by former detainees who witnessed the deaths in their cells

The "Syrian Network for Human Rights" (SNHR) is a group in the UK probably connected to British foreign intelligence and with dubious monetary sources. It only says:

SNHR funds its work and activities through unconditional grants and donations from individuals and institutions.

Now that is true transparency.

SNHR is known for rather ridiculous claims about casualties caused by various sides of the conflict. It is not know what SNHR qualifies as civilians - do these include armed civil militia? But note that none of the mostly civilians SNHR claims to have died in the prison are said to have been executed. How is it possible that a organization frequently quoted in the media as detailed source of casualties in Syria has no record of the 5,000 to 13,000 Amnesty claims were executed?

5.        The report is padded up with before/after satellite pictures of enlarged graveyards in Syria. It claims that these expansions are a sign of mass graves of government opponents.  But there is zero evidence for that. Many people have died in Syria throughout the war on all sides of the conflict. The enlargement, for example, of the Martyrs Cemetery south of Damascus (p.29/30) is hardly a sign of mass killing of anti-government insurgents. Would those be honored as martyrs by the government side.

6.       The report talks of "extrajudicially executed" prisoners but then describes (military) court procedures and a necessary higher up approval of the judgement. One may not like the laws that govern the Syrian state but the courts and the procedures Amnesty describes seem to follow Syrian laws and legal processes. They are thereby - by definition - not extrajudicial 

7.        In its Executive Summary the Amnesty report says that "Death sentences are approved by the Grand Mufti of Syria and ...". But there is no evidence provided of "approval" by the Grand Mufti in the details of the report. On page 19 it claims, based on two former prison and court officials:

"The judgement is sent by military post to the Grand Mufti of Syria and to either the Minister of Defence or the Chief of Staff of the Army, who are deputized to sign for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and who specify the date of the execution".

It is very doubtful that the Syrian government would "deputize" or even inform the Grand Mufti in cases of military or criminal legal proceedings. Amnesty International may dislike the fact but Syria is a secular state. The Grand Mufti in Syria is a civil legal authority for some followers of the Sunni Muslim religion in Syria but he has no official judiciary role. From the 2010 Swiss dissertation Models of Religious Freedom: Switzerland, the United States, and Syria quoted here:

In Syria a mufti is a legal and religious expert (faqih and ‘alim) who has the power to give legally non-binding recommendations (sing. fatwa, pl. fatawa) in matters of Islamic law. 

...
Queries which are either sought by a shari‘a judge or private individuals regard the personal status laws of the Muslim community only. In the Arab Republic fatawa are given neither to public authorities nor to individual civil servants, ..

Neither the Syrian constitution nor any Syrian law I can find refers to a role of the Grand Mufti in any military or civil criminal court proceding. The Amnesty claim "approved by the Grand Mufti of Syria"is not recorded anywhere else. It is very likely false. The Grand Mufti, Sheikh Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun, is a moderate, recognized and accomplished scholar. He should sue Amnesty for this slander.

Syrian law includes a death penalty for certain severe and violent crimes. Before 2011 actual executions in Syria were very rare, most death sentences were commuted. Allegedly the laws were amended in late 2011, after the war in Syria had started, to include the death penalty as possible punishment for directly arming terrorists.

It is quite likely that the Syrian military and/or civil judiciary hand out some death penalties against captured foreign and domestic "rebels" it finds them guilty of very severe crimes. It is fighting the Islamic State, al Qaeda and other extreme groups well known for mass murder and other extreme atrocities. It is likely that some of those sentences are applied. But the Syrian government has also provided amnesty to ten-thousands of "rebels" who fought the government but have laid down their arms.

The claims in the Amnesty report are based on spurious and biased opposition accounts from outside of the country. The headline numbers of 5,000 to 13,000 are calculated on the base of unfounded hypotheticals. The report itself states that only 36 names of allegedly executed persons are known to Amnesty, less than the number of "witnesses" Amnesty claims to have interviewed. The high number of claimed execution together with the very low number of names is not plausible.

The report does not even meet the lowest mark of scientific or legal veracity. It is pure biased propaganda.

Note: An earlier version of this piece mixed up the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). Both are registered in the UK and claim to provide accurate casualty data from Syria. Only SNHR is referenced in this Amnesty report.

Syria carried out mass hangings at military prison: Amnesty International: The Syrian government has executed up to 13,000 prisoners in mass hangings and carried out systematic torture at a military jail near Damascus, rights watchdog Amnesty International said on Tuesday.

Click for Spanish, German, Dutch, Danish, French, translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load.

===========

Zie ook: 'Amnesty claimt zonder bewijs 13.000 moorden middels massa executies in 'gevangenis Assad.........' Deel 2'

Klik voor meer berichten n.a.v. het bovenstaande, op één van de labels, die u onder dit bericht aantreft.

PS: in de kop stond per abuis 'gevangenissen', waar 'gevangenis' moet staan, hersteld op 21 februari 2017.