“Inside Syrian Regime Prisons: the Caesar Files” Exhibit

14th ASP to the ICC, The Hague, 18-20 November 2015

In the margins of the 14th Session of the International Criminal Court Assembly of States Parties to be held in The Hague from 18 to 26 November 2015, Syrian Association for Missing and Conscience Detainees, Euro-Syrian Democratic Forum and No Peace Without Justice are hosting  the “Inside Syrian Regime Prisons: the Caesar Files” Exhibit.The exhibition, which is co-sponsored bby the Governments of Canada, Liechtenstein and United States of America, will open with a ceremony on Wednesday 18 November 2015 at 18h00, in the Yangtze Room, 1st Floor, World Forum, The Hague,through to Friday 20 November 2015.

The Caesar Exhibition displays photographs of detainees from the Syrian regime’s prisons and detention centres. The photographs were taken by a former military policeman of the Syrian army – known by the pseudonym “Caesar” – who fled Syria in 2013. Caesar smuggled out with him over 55,000 photos of approximately7.000 Syrians tortured by the Assad regime. The 11.000 victims he photographed represent only a fraction of the systematic torture and killing that still take place inside Syrian regime’s prisons.

During his service for the military police of the Assad regime, Caesar was a crime scene photographer. His duties were to photograph and document the bodies of those brought from their places of detention to military Hospitals 607 and 601 – the hospitals used by the Syrian regime as processing centres for tortured prisoners. The individuals in the Caesar photographs were tortured and killed by agents of the Assad regime between March 2011 and August 2013. The photographs show evidence of physical injury of the sort that would result from starvation, brutal beating, strangulation and other forms of torture and killing.

After thorough analysis by a first-rate legal and forensic team in early 2014, the “Caesar” photographs were shared with and processed by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI), which cited them as clear evidence of systematic human rights violations by the Assad regime.