Damascus: Syria has carried out 24 people after punishing the accusations of terrorism to turn on last year’s forest fires, leaving three dead and burning thousands of forest hectares (hectares), the Ministry of Justice Thursday.
Public execution of a large group of people rarely occur in Syria torn war, where the decade-old conflict has left hundreds of thousands of dead and displaced half of the country’s population, including 5 million refugees abroad.
Forest fires broke out in several Middle Eastern countries on October 2020 amid unusual heat waves for the time this year, leaving Syria very hard.
Three people were killed in Blazes, which also burned extensive forest areas, mostly in government-controlled regions in Latakia and Central Homs Province.
Hometown President Bashar Assad in Qardaha in Latakia Province was devastated by fire, which was very damaging to the building used as a storage for state-owned tobacco companies, part of the collapse.
Assad made a rare visit to the area shortly after the fire was controlled.
A statement issued by the Ministry of Justice said Thursday that they were executed the previous day were “criminals who carry out terrorist attacks that cause death and damage to state infrastructure and public and private property through the use of flammable materials.” Said 11 others were sentenced to life in prison in the same case.
Other nine, including five teenagers, received a prison sentence.
Prison sentences for teenagers range from 10 to 12 years, said the Ministry of Justice.
The statement did not provide further details about the state of execution or how they occurred.
For civilians, the death penalty in Syria is usually done by hanging.
Syrian law allows the death penalty for violations including terrorism, espionage, betrayal, combustion and desertion of soldiers.
“The execution of 24 people yesterday showed the neglect of the Syrian government for international law, especially the right to life,” said Diana Semaan, researchers about Syria for Amnesty International.
He added that the sentence of death was often passed through secret trials or during court processes that did not have basic protection such as lawyers, and with routine recognition extracted under torment or other bad treatments and coercion.
In 2017, a report by Amnesty International said that as many as 13,000 people were executed in a secret mass decoration in Saydnaya prison in Syria between September 2011 and December 2015, at the peak of the Syrian civil war.
It was said that the execution was allegedly authorized at the highest level of the Syrian government.
The report said that between 20 and 50 people were hung every week, sometimes twice a week, in Saydnaya prison in what is called an organization “devoted to the extraordinary execution campaign.” The UN human rights expert also reported the mass killings of prisoners held by the government in official detention centers and emergencies that often occur because they were seen.
Their executed Wednesday was among the dozens of people who were detained at the end of 2020 which claimed that they began planning to turn on the fire from August last year, the Ministry of Justice’s statement said.
They began fires in September which affected 280 cities and villages and damaged 370 houses, the ministry added.
It is said that a total of 24,000 hectares (59,300 hectares) of forests and plantations are burned in fire.