Amnesty: patients tortured in Syrian hospitals

ADO - agencies: Patients in Syrian state hospitals are subjected to torture and mistreatment as part of the government’s crackdown on dissent, while medics are also being targeted, Amnesty International said, as a leading Syrian rights activist
said that Damascus has detained more than 30,000 people since launching March.

“The Syrian government has turned hospitals into instruments of repression in its efforts to crush opposition,” London-based Amnesty said in a 39-page report released late on Monday.

The report documented how wounded patients in at least four government-run hospitals had been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, both by medical workers and security personnel.

And “hospital workers suspected of treating protesters and others injured in unrest-related incidents have themselves faced arrest and torture,” it said, leaving them in a dilemma, according to AFP.

“It is deeply alarming that the Syrian authorities seem to have given the security forces a free rein in hospitals, and that in many cases hospital staff appear to have taken part in torture and ill treatment of the very people they are supposed to care for,” said Cilina Nasser, Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa researcher.

“Afraid of the consequences of going to a government hospital, many people have chosen to seek treatment either at private hospitals or at poorly equipped makeshift field hospitals,” the report said.

“Syrian medical workers are being placed in an impossible situation — forced to choose between treating wounded people and preserving their own safety,” it said.