Among the Syrian refugees in the Netherlands there are dozens of people who are de facto linked to the Bashar al-Assad regime. Including the torturers. Control measures, however strict, could not prevent these persons from entering the Netherlands. The case came to light as a result of a Dutch newspaper’s survey among Syrian refugees fleeing the ongoing civil war in the country, with the contributions of experts and humanitarian organizations operating in the field.
Protected torturers
Syrians currently make up the largest group of refugees in the Netherlands. According to the survey conducted by the newspaper De Trouw in partnership with the Argos radio program, there are currently between 50 and 100 Assad collaborators in the Netherlands. The estimates were published by Uğur Üngör, a professor at the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Niod) and a lecturer at Utrecht University. The rumors about the atrocities committed by these men are very serious. Several torture victims who declared that they knew their torturers in public during the interviews. These will often be former guards who keep them in prisons of the Syrian secret services. How did they manage to enter Europe and even get international protection status?
knowledge gap
“This could mean that the procedures were not careful enough,” said Jelle van Buuren, a security expert at Leiden University. What did someone do in The teacher attributes this error both to the urgency these procedures often require and to the authorities’ lack of ability to obtain certain files. Dutch newspapers collected testimonies of some of these encounters between victims and torturers, such as the story of a woman named Rehab who was imprisoned for five months at a branch of the Syrian military intelligence service in Damascus in 2013. She went to prison after accepting refugees, including children, at the school where she was the principal. The encounter with one of his captors took place in Amsterdam’s Dam Square, where Rehab came face to face with one of the guards. “I was shopping there and watched the pigeons in the square. At one point I see a man I knew immediately,” the woman told Nieuwsuur. “A petty officer I met while I was in custody. He was with a woman. I started to tremble. I was very scared and panicked,” he said.
rapist on the train
René was arrested after demonstrating against the Assad regime in Syria and for his activism for the LGBTQ community. She was raped by her three guards in prison. One day, seven years ago, on a train at Amsterdam Central Station, he recognized a face on the platform. That of the man who tortured and raped him while he was detained in Syria. “It was there and I thought, ‘No, it’s not real.’ But I looked again and saw that it was him. I know his face. It’s a face I’ll never forget,” René said. Victims do not intend to remain passive in the presence of torturers, even in the country where they think they will find a minimum of peace. That’s why many refugees use the power of social media to coordinate their efforts to find people linked to the Syrian regime.
War crimes reports
At the same time, real refugees demand improved control mechanisms put in place by the Dutch government. “More cooperation between the Dutch government and local organizations is needed,” Nos Mazen Dervis, a Syrian lawyer and human rights activist, told the media. She was also tortured before she fled to the Netherlands. While collecting evidence and documents of crimes for a while, this information does not always reach all the countries from which the Syrians fled. Each year, the prosecutor and the international crime team of police investigate twenty reports of suspected war criminals residing in the Netherlands. Half of these cases involve people from Iraq and Syria. A 34-year-old suspect linked to the Assad regime, who has allegedly committed war crimes so far, has been arrested. There are also those who do not report because the traumas related to the forces of the establishment, like Rehab, are too deep. “I’m afraid of the police. It’s a phobia. I panic when I see a policeman,” she admitted.
Source: Today IT

Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.