Accountability for Torture in Syria – Norway’s Role in the Struggle against Impunity

Press Conference

29.10.2019

12 November 2019 at 10:00 am

at the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, Kirkegata 5, 6th floor, Oslo (Norway)

The first trial worldwide on state torture in Syria is expected to start in Germany in early 2020. The German Federal Public Prosecutor filed charges against two former officials of President Bashar al-Assad’s security apparatus.

The case in Germany – as well as similar cases ongoing in Sweden and Austria– is based on the principle of universal jurisdiction.

Norway could also play a role in the international efforts to hold to account those responsible for international crimes committed by the Syrian government.

Together with Syrian torture survivors, its Syrian partners from the Syrian Center for Legal Research and Studies, the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression and the Caesar Files Group, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee (NHC) and Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) will explain possible legal means and avenues in Norway to tackle grave human rights violations committed in Syria.

with

Anwar al-Bunni, Executive Director of SCLSR
Ibrahim al-Kasem, Director of CFSG
Almoutassim al-Kilani, Litigation Manager at SCM
Gunnar Ekeløve-Slydal, Deputy Secretary General of NHC
Patrick Kroker, Head of the Syria project at ECCHR

The press conference will be held in Norwegian and English.

Contact:
ECCHR, Anabel Bermejo: Tel: +49 (0)172 587 00 87, E-Mail: bermejo@ecchr.eu
NHC, Emil Andre Erstad: Tel: +47 92294594, E-Mail: eao@nhc.no

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Who we are

To counter injustice with legal interventions – this is the aim and daily work of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights.

ECCHR is an independent, non-profit legal and educational organization dedicated to enforcing civil and human rights worldwide. It was founded in 2007 by Wolfgang Kaleck and other international human rights lawyers to protect and enforce the rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as other human rights declarations and national constitutions, through legal means.

Together with those affected and partners worldwide, ECCHR uses legal means to end impunity for those responsible for torture, war crimes, sexual and gender-based violence, corporate exploitation and fortressed borders.

Press Contact

Maria Bause
T: +49 30 69819797
M: presse@ecchr.eu

Philipp Jedamzik
T: +49 30 29680591
M: presse@ecchr.eu

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