In a fast-moving few days of developments in North East Syria, Syrian Government forces have taken control of areas previously held by the Kurdish authorities, including Al-Hol detention camp and several prisons holding men suspected of affiliation with ISIS. At time of writing, Roj detention camp, where most of the British women stripped of citizenship and their children are held, remains under Kurdish control.
The US military has announced that it has begun transferring male detainees to Iraq, where the justice ministry has said they will face trial. Reprieve has issued the below statements, picked up widely in the media – see links below.
January 20: “Today in North East Syria, British children are in mortal danger, caught in the crossfire as a direct result of the UK Government’s negligent policy choice to strip the parents of citizenship and refuse to repatriate them. This was always the likely consequence, but ministers chose to bury their heads in the sand to avoid facing up to it.
“For family members back home in the UK, the fragments of information coming out of Camp Roj and Al-Hol are terrifying. The Government should make urgent arrangements to repatriate all British nationals at the earliest opportunity, while emphasising to all diplomatic partners the need to respect and protect the rights of prisoners in these facilities.
“Security experts have been warning about the collapse of these detention facilities for years. The Kurdish authorities themselves described them as a ‘ticking time bomb’. Successive US administrations have called for allied countries to take their people home so the prison camps could be closed in an orderly way, to prevent precisely this type of scenario.”
January 21, following announcement of prisoner transfers:
“This is an extremely worrying development and should ring alarm bells at the UK Foreign Office.
Summary trials and executions of prisoners in Iraq have been extensively documented. Anyone transferred to Iraqi detention facilities faces a very real risk of being tortured into making a forced confession and executed.
We believe there to be no more than ten Brits in the male prisons – but it’s impossible to be certain because there is zero access to them for families or lawyers. The prospect of British men being transferred to Iraq and executed without a shred of due process should horrify the UK Government.
If British nationals are being forcibly rendered to Iraq with the knowledge or acquiescence of the UK, this risks complicity in grave human rights violations, including torture and unlawful executions. Ministers must establish whether any British citizens are among those being transferred and take immediate action to protect them.”
These comments and other exclusive quotes have been used by BBC News, the Times, the Telegraph and Middle East Eye, among others.
