The Horrors in Syria

From BoingBoing:

YouTube has reinstated access to a graphic, horrifying video of Hamza Ali al-Khateeb, a 13-year-old child who is reported to have been tortured, castrated, and killed by Syrian government thugs after being separated from his mother and father at an April protest against the Assad regime. A link to the video is here; it is extremely disturbing and not appropriate for viewing by children. The video was apparently blocked by YouTube due to its shocking content, then unblocked after reporters and human rights advocates petitioned YouTube administrators.

The boy's corpse was returned to his family a month after his arrest. As The Nation reports, they "risked their lives to produce the video."

The New York Times reports that his father was detained after the video went public, and he has since been missing.

The New York Times describes the video:

But the remains themselves testify all too clearly to ghastly torture. Video posted online shows his battered, purple face. His skin is scrawled with cuts, gashes, deep burns and bullet wounds that would probably have injured but not killed. His jaw and kneecaps are shattered, according to an unidentified narrator, and his penis chopped off.

The US is willing to go after Gaddafi, but not Bashar al-Assad. It is clear to me that Assad has now killed & tortured about 20 times as many people as Gaddafi. But the US has not changed its attitude toward Assad. Assad helped the US by being the “outsource centre” for torture when the US wanted to question supposed al Qaeda operatives. Think of Maher Arar, the totally innocent Canadian sent off by the US for torture in Syria. The US still refuses to admit that this was a mistake or to punish anybody in the US for this grotesque crime.