SYRIAN FORCES USE SEXUAL VIOLENCE
AGAINST MEN, WOMEN, CHILDREN: HRW
AGAINST MEN, WOMEN, CHILDREN: HRW
Beirut (Reuters) - Notice: This story contains graphic details of abuse and torture
- Government forces have used rape and other sexual
violence against men, women and children during the Syrian uprising,
Human Rights Watch said last week. The U.S.-based group said it had
recorded 20 incidents from interviews inside and outside Syria with
eight victims, including four women, and more than 25 other people with
knowledge of sexual abuse - including medical workers, former detainees,
army defectors, and women's rights activists. "Sexual violence in
detention is one of many horrific weapons in the Syrian government's
torture arsenal and Syrian security forces regularly use it to humiliate
and degrade detainees with complete impunity," said Sarah Leah Whitson,
Middle East director at HRW. "The assaults are not limited to detention
facilities - government forces and pro-government shabiha militia
members have also sexually assaulted women and girls during home raids
and residential sweeps." Cases were reported all around Syria, but most
of all in Homs province, an epicenter of the revolt. 
HRW
quoted a man who said he had been held in the Political Security branch
in Latakia in a cell with over 70 other people. He said young boys were
treated worse than adults, brought back to the cell raped and with
their fingernails pulled out. "One boy came into the cell bleeding from
behind. He couldn't walk. It was something they just did to the boys. We
would cry for them," the man said. HRW said many of the assaults were
in circumstances in which commanding officers knew or should have known
the crimes, such as electric shocks to genitalia, were taking place. In
another face-to-face interview a woman from the Karm al-Zeitoun
neighborhood of Homs city which was overrun by Assad's troops said she
heard security forces and shabiha militia rape her neighbors while she
hid in her apartment in March. "I could hear one girl fighting with one
of (the men)... She pushed him and he shot her in the head," HRW quoted
the woman as saying. She said three girls, the youngest aged 12, were
then raped. After the men left the woman went next door. "The scene on
the inside was unreal. The 12-year-old was lying on the ground, blood to
her knees... More than one person had raped the 12-year-old... She was
torn the length of a forefinger. I will never go back there. It comes to
me. I see it in my dreams and I just cry."
WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?
Without
spiritual advancement, individually and socially, human society becomes
like a society of polished animals. We may have so much technology, but
we still act and fight on the same order as cats and dogs. But human
life is meant for a much higher purpose. Human life is the doorway to
other realms of existence, the topmost being the spiritual realm. In
order to rise above "animal vision," we have to become spiritually aware
and see beyond the body and its designations, which is merely a
temporary covering of the soul, like a shirt or coat. ... As long as people's consciousness
is centered around their temporary bodily identity, throughout the
world you will continue to find quarrels, fights, riots, wars, the
tragedy of people starving in Africa and other places because of the
politics, and everything else that motivates people to act on the bodily
platform because of the superficial differences between races,
religions, cultures, sexes, ideals, or political viewpoints.Stephen Knapp (Śrīpad Nandanandana dasa) :
"Spiritual Enlightenment: A Cure for Social Ills"
http://www.stephen-knapp.com - http://www.stephenknapp.info/
http://www.stephen-knapp.com/spiritual_enlightenment_a_cure_for_social_ills.htm
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