Today, @amnesty visited 2 mass graves on the outskirts of Damascus, where it seems the Assad government dumped the bodies of detainees from various detention facilities & prisons, incl Saydnaya. Those detainees had either been executed or died from torture/conditions of detention Former prison guards and detainees from Saydnaya had described to @amnesty the location of one of these mass graves and said that families are not informed of the deaths nor given the remains of their loved ones. The smell of dead bodies permeated the air.

We @amnesty spent yesterday visiting the Assad government’s security and intelligence branches in Damascus. For years, survivors had described the horrors they experienced in these underground dungeons. But nothing could have prepared us for what we saw. These underground labyrinths are literally hell on earth. They were overcrowded, crawling with cockroaches and other insects, lacked ventilation. They still smell of blood and death.

‼️ A year after the #BeirutBlast, @hrw’s report examines 100s of pages of official documents to show which #Lebanon officials were responsible for one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in the world, that killed 218 people
hrw.org/news/2021/08/0…
Findings in the thread below: 2/9 The Ministry of Public Works & Transport, responsible for the port, was warned about dangers posed by the ammonium nitrate, yet failed to correctly communicate those to the judiciary & then knowingly stored the ammonium nitrate alongside flammable/explosive materials.

The Military Court has charged at least 6 of the detained #Tripoli protesters with "terrorism and theft," according to their lawyer Ayman Raad. We have said it before, and we will say it again:

#Lebanon's military courts have NO business trying civilians. (1/6)

https://twitter.com/Akhbaralsaha/status/1363806533100974085

Structure of #Lebanon's military courts undermines right to fair trial:
-many of judges are military officers, appointed by Defense Minister, who are not required to have any legal training
-military personnel serving as judges remain subordinate to the defense minister.
(2/6)

Millions of #Lebanon’s residents are at risk of going hungry due to #COVID_19 lockdown measures unless the government urgently puts in place a robust, coordinated plan to provide assistance. Latest from @hrw:
hrw.org/news/2020/04/0… On April 1, govt announced it would distribute 400,000 LBP ($150) to the poorest families, but offered few details. A week earlier, it had pledged 75 billion LBP ($50,000) for nutrition + sanitary assistance, w/out any details - unclear whether both refer to the same assistance.

#Lebanon’s financial crisis has restricted the ability of importers to bring in vital goods, resulting in a scarcity of medical supplies, incl masks + gloves, necessary to deal with the #COVID_19 outbreak. Latest from @hrw:
hrw.org/news/2020/03/2… Medical supply importers have only been able to bring in $10million of equipment since Sept, <10% of #Lebanon's needs. Head of the Syndicate of Private Hospitals warned “if there are no imports of fresh [medical] supplies, we will not be able to manage for more than a week.