Far From Justice - Human Rights Watch

silent, and only the judge and mukhabarat [security services] representatives speak. I havenoticed there is no western-style defense.” 47The restrictions imposed on access to lawyers violate the rights of a defendant asguaranteed by the ICCPR, to which Syria acceded in 1969. Article 14(3) of the ICCPRguarantees a defendant the right to “have adequate time and facilities for the preparation ofhis defense and to communicate with counsel of his own choosing,” to have suchcommunication be confidential, and ”to examine, or have examined, the witnesses againsthim.“ Paragraph 1 of the Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers also emphasizes that“everyone has the right to request the assistance of a lawyer of their choice…to defend themin all stages of criminal proceedings,” including during interrogations. 482. Temporary Suspension of SSSC Trials following Riot in Sednaya PrisonAccording to diplomats, defense lawyers and human rights activists, the SSSC suspended itsoperations starting in July 2008 following a riot that broke out at Sednaya prison on July 5,2008, which the authorities quelled violently. 49 The government detains the vast majority ofdetainees on trial before the SSSC at Sednaya prison.The riot had begun when a contingent of Military Police officers conducted an aggressivesearch of the inmates’ cells. The prisoners, a majority of whom are Islamists, protested byfighting with members of the military police. According to an inmate who spoke to HumanRights Watch from a cell phone inside the prison, the military police responded by openingfire on them. Following the shooting, detainees overpowered the security guards and tookseveral hostages, including the prison director. Tense negotiations reportedly ensued forfour days, with information leaking to the outside world by inmates using cell phones seizedfrom the hostages. The last known communication from the prisoners was a July 8 phone callfrom an inmate to his family, saying that security officials were threatening to violently stormthe prison if the prisoners did not surrender. 5047 Human Rights Watch e-mail from Damascus-based Western Diplomat B.B., August 14, 2008.48 Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, adopted by the Eighth United Nations Congress onthe Prevention of Crime and theTreatment of Offenders, Havana, 27 August to 7 September 1990, U.N. Doc. A/CONF.144/28/Rev.1 at 118 (1990).49 Human Rights Watch interview with Damascus-based Western diplomat N.R., October 7, 2008; Human Rights Watchinterview with Syrian lawyer C.C., October 29, 2008, Human Rights Watch interview with Syrian lawyer S.A., October 29, 2008.50 For more information on the riot, see “Syria: Investigate Sednaya Prison Deaths,” Human Rights Watch news release, July21, 2008, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/07/21/syria-investigate-sednaya-prison-deaths.17 Human Rights Watch February 2009