Syria Justice and Accountability Centre

The Syria Justice and Accountability Centre (SJAC) is a non-profit justice and legal documentation organization that monitors and reports on violations by various actors in the Syrian Conflict. Its documentation includes data on the Syrian government, opposition forces, ISIS, and foreign actors.[1][2] The organization was started by the group Friends of the Syrian People in 2012, who had a stated goal of preserving documentation and creating a centralized source for data collection. SJAC primarily works on issues related to transitional justice,[3] criminal accountability, and human rights violations in Syria.

Syria Justice and Accountability Centre
AbbreviationSJAC
FormationApril 2012
501c3 Non-Profit
HeadquartersWashington, DC
Location
  • United States
Executive Director
Mohammad Al-Abdallah
Websitehttps://syriaaccountability.org/

SJAC is a Washington D.C. based organization that has staff and analysts in Europe and the United States. It also has documenters who collect witness statements about crimes against humanity in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. SJAC often collaborates with researchers and human rights and justice based organizations in the European Union and Syria.[4][5]

Current Documentation Mechanisms

Trial Reporting

SJAC's legal team in Germany monitors and reports on trials of those accused of committing war crimes in Syria.[6] Two ongoing trial monitoring cases conducted by SJAC are that of Anwar Raslan[7] and Alaa M., a German doctor accused of committing crimes against humanity while employed by the Syrian Government.[8] SJAC previously monitored the German trial of Eyad Al-Gharib[9] who was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for his role in knowingly transporting detainees to detention sites where they would face systematic torture and abuse.[10]

Missing Persons Cases

SJAC works with several teams of responders in Syria which exhume and investigate mass graves and document information about missing persons in Syria. SJAC works with the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team to provide training in Syria on how to accurately exhume, examine, and document mass graves and human remains.[11]

Documentation Training

SJAC provides training in Arabic, both in person and virtually to those working to recover remains and discover missing persons in Syria.[12] Training material provided by SJAC includes videos, fact sheets, and quizzes which are meant to prepare individuals to collect evidence of crimes and forced disappearances.

Government Document Preservation

SJAC preserved 5,003 government documents found in former Syrian Government intelligence offices. The documents survived bombing during the conflict in Raqqa and Homs and were later smuggled by activists from Syria to Turkey. The documents detail instances where government officials had tortured and spied on Syrians in the lead-up to the Syrian Conflict. Later documents include evidence of broad authorization by the government to allow security forces to use force against peaceful protests and uprisings during the 2011 Arab Spring.[13]

In an interview with France24, SJAC claimed that it had identified a number of documents which could later be used for criminal prosecution of government officials who had engaged in war crimes and crimes against humanity.[14] Further analysis by outside organizations will be necessary to determine if and how prosecution of former official would be possible under current international law.

Analysis

SJAC publishes articles, blogs, and reports that pertain to transitional justice, human rights abuses, war crimes, international law, refugee issues, and the international community’s response to the Syrian conflict. Recent blogs and publications center around current events, challenges faced by refugees, and trial monitoring of Syrian individuals charged with crimes against humanity.

In January, 2021 the organization filed a communication with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court asking for an investigation into crimes committed against Syrian refugees who were attempting to cross the border into Greece. The communication was lodged in response to accusations that the European Coast Guard (Frontex), had damaged migrant boats and endangered lives by pushing boats away from Greek territorial waters. The case is currently being reviewed by the ICC which will determine whether to conduct a larger investigation.[15]

Bayanat

Bayanat is a relational database software created by SJAC that sorts and organizes large sets of open-source digital data.[16] It was developed in 2014 and contains over 1.8 million pieces of data that primarily document human rights violations in Syria by perpetrators on both sides of the conflict. The database was first made public on GitHub in December 2020.[17] SJAC shares this data with the International Impartial Independent Mechanism as well as other justice mechanisms that utilize documentation of violations perpetrated during the Syrian Conflict.

References
  1. "Syrian Justice and Accountability Center". Peace Insight. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
  2. "Thousands of smuggled documents expose Syria's shady security agencies". France 24. 2019-05-21. Retrieved 2021-07-14.
  3. "Syrians Still Hoping for Justice and Accountability for Abuses". United States Institute of Peace. Retrieved 2021-07-14.
  4. Wise, Jamie (May 2020). Transitional Justice Preferences Among Syrians: A Qualitative Exploration (Thesis thesis). The Ohio State University. hdl:1811/91723.
  5. "Syria Situation of returnees from abroad". Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs: 8. June 2021.
  6. "TIMEP Joins Court Motion on Historic Syria Trial in Koblenz". TIMEP. July 2021. Retrieved 2021-07-12.
  7. "'My goal is justice for all Syrians': one man's journey from jail to witness for the prosecution". The Guardian. 2020-12-12. Retrieved 2021-07-12.
  8. Schuetze, Christopher F.; Hubbard, Ben (2020-06-22). "Syrian Doctor Accused of Torture Is Arrested in Germany". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-07-12.
  9. "Syrian regime officials on trial in Koblenz, Germany - Branch 251". branch-251.captivate.fm. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
  10. Claudia Otto, Tamara Qiblawi and Stephanie Halasz (24 February 2021). "In world first, Germany convicts Syrian regime officer of crimes against humanity". CNN. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
  11. "The Search For Truth". Searching for Truth After ISIS. Retrieved 2021-07-12.
  12. Leyh, Brianne McGonigle (2017-04-12). "Changing Landscapes in Documentation Efforts: Civil Society Documentation of Serious Human Rights Violations". Utrecht Journal of International and European Law. 33 (84): 44–58. doi:10.5334/ujiel.365. ISSN 2053-5341.
  13. "Thousands of smuggled documents expose Syria's shady security agencies". France 24. 2019-05-21. Retrieved 2021-07-14.
  14. "Thousands of smuggled documents expose Syria's shady security agencies". France 24. 2019-05-21. Retrieved 2021-07-14.
  15. "Syrian rights group asks for probe into mistreatment of refugees by Greece". InfoMigrants. 2021-01-29. Retrieved 2021-07-14.
  16. "Bayanat". Bayanat. Retrieved 2021-07-12.
  17. "GitHub - sjacorg/bayanat: Open source data management solution for human rights documentation". GitHub. Retrieved 2021-07-28.
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