The Syria Trials

While many doctors and medical staff sided with the Syrian regime after the protests began in Syria in 2011, there were, of course, many doctors, nurses and medical students who sided with the protestors calling for freedom and democracy. Field medical teams to help injured protestors, and later field medical hospitals and checkpoints to care for those wounded in the escalating war, were set up - only to become targets of the regime’s increasingly more violent tactics. We hear from physician Houssam al-Nahhas, who worked in hospitals in rebel-held East Aleppo, and from lawyer Steve Kostas and barrister Toby Cadman, about the case building efforts to hold the perpetrators of attacks on hospitals accountable.   

Please take care when listening - this episode talks about violence and war.

The Syria Trials is a 75 Podcast production. This episode is hosted by Fritz Streiff, and produced by Sasha Edye-Lindner, with editorial support from Mais Katt. It was mixed by Tobias Withers.

Support for our podcast comes from German Federal Foreign Office funds that are provided by the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen IFA’s Zivik Funding Programme.

If you can't get enough of our podcast, visit our website https://75podcasts.org/. Here you'll find an archive of all our episodes with their transcripts, and our other productions. 

Useful links:

https://phr.org/issues/health-under-attack/attacks-in-syria/

http://syriamap.phr.org/#/en  

https://syrianarchive.org/en/investigations/Medical-Facilities-Under-Fire

https://www.justiceinitiative.org/ 

https://www.justiceinitiative.org/voices/building-roads-to-justice-in-syria 

https://www.guernica37.com/chambers

The trial of Alaa M is one of the only cases in the Syrian justice and accountability space to currently be ongoing in a criminal court. Alaa M is a Syrian medical doctor, who was arrested in Germany on suspicion of complicity in crimes against humanity. Fritz Streiff delves into the key topic this trial has highlighted - the Syrian regime’s use of doctors, their medical knowledge, and the medical sector more widely, to oppress, torture, and eliminate anyone who dared to oppose them.

The Syria Trials is a 75 Podcast production. This episode is hosted by Fritz Streiff, and produced by Sasha Edye-Lindner, with editorial support from Mais Katt. The voice overs were provided by Nama’a Qudah and Shamima Edye-Lindner. Translation was by Kristina Kaghdo. This episode was mixed by Tobias Withers.

Support for our podcast comes from German Federal Foreign Office funds that are provided by the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen IFA’s Zivik Funding Programme.

If you can't get enough of our podcast, visit our website https://75podcasts.org/. Here you'll find an archive of all our episodes with their transcripts, and our other productions. 

Useful links: 

Annsar Shahhoud’s thesis - https://scripties.uba.uva.nl/search?id=c3376472 

Caesar files - https://caesar-fsg.org/about/

Alaa M Trial monitoring by SJAC - https://syriaaccountability.org/tag/trial-monitoring/

Fritz Streiff is joined by Kristina Kaghdo, presenter of the Arabic series of ‘The Syria Trials’, to explore where we currently stand on the long road to justice for Syria. What has happened in the justice and accountability space, in the 11 years since the regime violently suppressed the peaceful revolution?  

Through the stories of Syrians and their experiences of justice, Fritz and Kristina journey around the scattered landscape of justice and accountability, to build up a picture of what legal efforts for Syria are being made and what justice for Syria and Syrians really means. They explore the limitations and challenges that Syrians, civil society organisations, activists, lawyers and many others, are facing when it comes to dealing with international justice and what the law can do for Syria.

The Syria Trials is a 75 Podcast production. This episode is hosted by Fritz Streiff and Kristina Kaghdo, and produced by Sasha Edye-Lindner, with editorial support from Mais Katt. 

Support for our podcast comes from German Federal Foreign Office funds that are provided by the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen IFA’s Zivik Funding Programme.

If you can't get enough of our podcast, head to our website https://75podcasts.org/ Here you'll find an archive of all our episodes with their transcripts, as well as our other productions. 

Links to organisations mentioned in this episode:

ECCHR - https://www.ecchr.eu/en/ 

Enab Baladi - https://english.enabbaladi.net/ 

SCM (Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression) - https://scm.bz/en/