VOA慢速英语2017--国际特赦组织:数千人叙利亚人遭绞刑

（单词翻译）

Amnesty International says the Syrian government has executed thousands of prisoners in what it considers war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The rights group is accusing the government of carrying out systematic¹ torture at a jail 30 kilometers from the Syrian capital, Damascus.?

In a report published on Tuesday, Amnesty International said that between 5,000 and 13,000 prisoners were executed from September 2011 to December 2015.

Once or twice a week, groups of up to 50 people at a time were hanged at the Saydnaya Prison, Amnesty said. They would be beaten, then hanged in the middle of the night, it said.

The numbers may well be higher, noted² the writers of the report, called “Human Slaughterhouse: Mass Hangings and Extermination³ at Saydnaya Prison.”

Amnesty said it has no reason to believe the Syrian government has halted the executions. It said most of the victims were civilians⁴ believed to oppose the government of President Bashar al-Assad. They included doctors, lawyers, activists⁵, engineers and humanitarian⁶ workers, the rights group said.

The report took a year to complete. It is based on statements from 84 witnesses, including former Saydnaya guards and prison officials, detainees, judges, lawyers and experts on detention⁷ in Syria.

This is Amnesty’s second report on the prison.

The killings⁹ are carried out with little or no respect for the law, according to Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty’s Deputy Director of Research. She spoke¹⁰ in Beirut, Lebanon on Monday.

Maalouf said the executions take place after a “sham¹¹” trial that lasts only “a minute or three minutes.” She said they are approved by the “highest levels of authority,” including the minister of defense¹².

The government has execution panels that oversee¹³ the hangings, Maalouf added. In her words, “it is just impossible” that the hangings and the execution panels are taking place “without the knowledge of the highest levels of authority.”

The report calls on the United Nations Security Council to demand that Syria permit an independent investigation¹⁴ of the executions at Saydnaya. It said the government should let independent investigators¹⁵ visit all places of detention.

Amnesty said on Tuesday it asked the Syrian government to comment on claims made in the report, but received no response. In the past, the government has denied reports of massacres¹⁷ documented by international rights groups.

In addition to the hangings, the Amnesty report said, prison inmates¹⁸ are regularly tortured through severe beatings and sexual violence.

“They are denied adequate food, water, medicine, medical care and sanitation¹⁹, which has led to the rampant²⁰ spread of infection and disease,” it said.

They also say many detainees develop serious mental disorders²¹.

In other news, the United Nations confirmed that Syrian peace talks will restart later this month in Geneva, Switzerland. Talks between the warring sides were delayed until the 20th [of February] to give a ceasefire time to succeed.

Syria’s six-year-long civil war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and wounded many more.

Words in This Story

extermination - n. the act of destroying and killing⁸

sham - adj. something that is not what it appears to be and that is meant to trick or deceive people

massacre¹⁶ – n. the violent killing of many people

response - n. answer

adequate – adj. enough for some need or requirement

sanitation – n. the process of keeping places free from dirt, infection, disease, etc., by removing waste, trash and garbage, by cleaning streets, etc.

rampant – adj. growing quickly in a way that is difficult to control