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NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT
THREE FORMER INTERNATIONAL prosecutors have accused Syria of large-scale killing and torture in a report — based on evidence of a defector — commissioned by Qatar, which backs Syrian rebels, the Guardian and CNN have reported.
The report, which can be found online at both news outlets, relies on the unauthenticated testimony and photographs given by the source, who remains unidentified for security purposes.
The release comes a day before talks were due to be held in Geneva aimed at negotiating an end to Syria’s bloody civil war.
The informant, a photographer who claims to have defected from the Syrian military police, presented forensic experts commissioned by the London legal firm representing Qatar with around 55,000 digital images of 11,000 dead detainees.
He claims they died in captivity before being taken to a military hospital to be photographed.
[Image: CNN/Carter Ruck]
“Overall there was evidence that a significant number of the deceased were emaciated and a significant minority had been bound and/or beaten with rod-like objects,” said the report.
Some had no eyes while others showed signs of strangulation or electrocution, according to the 31-page document.
The report was written by Desmond de Silva, former chief prosecutor of the special court for Sierra Leone; Geoffrey Nice, the former lead prosecutor in the trial of former Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic; and David Crane, who indicted Liberian president Charles Taylor.
De Silva told the Guardian that the evidence provided the “smoking gun” proving that the regime of Bashar al-Assad had carried out “industrial-scale killing”.
Crane called the evidence “amazing” and suggested there was a strong case for prosecution.
“Now we have direct evidence of what was happening to people who had disappeared,” he explained.
“This is the first provable, direct evidence of what has happened to at least 11,000 human beings who have been tortured and executed and apparently disposed of.”
[Image: CNN/Carter Ruck]
The authors said they found the informant and his evidence to be credible after subjecting them to “rigorous scrutiny” and have made their findings available to the United Nations, governments and human rights groups.
Sunni Qatar was quick to back rebels who rose up in 2011 against the rule of Assad, who is backed by Shia powerhouse Iran.
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Have to admit that it’s far easier and cleaner and space efficient to just use Spotify.. Unless ur skint that is..
All fine until all the artists start to pull their music from streaming sites because they aren’t getting any royalties worth mentioning, just like Taylor Swift has already done!
Andy why don’t you torrent Taylor’s excellent work and then continue to pay for Spotify!
The problem with spotify, for artists, is that they really are getting very very little from it. There’s lots of legal work being done at the moment to try and change that, because it’s pretty obvious that streaming is the future of music, at least for the next few years. It’s the record companies that are reaping most of the benefits at the moment.
Actually spotify pay a high rate, I’m with a music distributor that I allow take 20% of my earnings for allowing me to release everything for free, this company seems to get the highest pay and I couldn’t believe it the first time, anyway I came to the conclusion that Taylor swifts record company must be taking a huge cut for her to act like a brat.
Artists make on average 0.007 dollars per stream. That means that a million streams on spotify makes an artist $7,000. Now split that between band members etc and that’s very little. It’s not so much a problem from an artist like Taylor swift, but there are plenty of middle of the road bands and artists who really aren’t making enough to live off. Plus, regardless of how rich Taylor swift already is, I still think she’s entitled to make a fair price for her music.
Like I said, the company I’m with pays out a higher rate of £0.008 which is €0.01 and that’s after their 20% of the earnings.
Artists might get very little from streaming sites, but its still a lot better than what they get from pirated sources, taylor swift pulled her music from spotify and the result was her new album becoming the most pirated album ever. Kind of cutting off her nose to spite her face.
Now ask them about their movie watching habits….
Ahoy matey !! It won’t stop my illegal downloading arrrrr !!
The amazing thing with music now is despite all the apparent technological advances, the audio quality actually just gets worse.
Music is a product and should be paid for.
Why the red thumbs?
I guess you won’t be paying for water either and will generally be parasites living on the backs of everybody else.
Pay your way in life please and please pay for what you consume.
I completely agree with what you’re saying Tom. You should suggest that to the bond holders who got their money back for their investments which were worth nothing!
Music is no longer pirated at such scale because of cloud streaming services. When you download actually ripped CDs in form of MP3 or another compression format you still have to upload it to your device and manage it offline for most of the time. It’s just inconvenient compared to “access everything online” in form of Spotify or another service, for 10 quid a month people chose convenience. Situation is still little different with movies – while Netflix is going strong and is quite great, it’s still far behind with release times. While most music albums appear on Spotify same day as retail copies – or even bit sooner, then with movies there is a huge lag… they’re easily 6-12 months behind retail releases.
While this still may be better than RTE where they think Home Alone is a new movie, it’s still nowhere near good to stop movie piracy business.
Use showbox instead. It’s up to date from what I can see.
Todays music is shyte anyway why would you want todiwnload anything
People download it because the majority listen to shyte. Simple. My design lecturer once said that when the whole wide world starts applauding your work, you should have good reason to be worried. Point, quite simply, is that there’s an enormous market for shyte.
You forgot to mention it hasn’t resulted in an increase in revenue for music or film industry
Well, it would have resulted in an increase. If everyone was pirating and getting music for free there’s no money going anywhere. Now that a massive percentage of people are paying for streaming there’s money being generated, however little the royalites are, its better than nothing. And i disagree with anyone who says thats crap because the internet has made a muscians audience way bigger than ever before, it should be fair that price of music comes down. No cds, no plastic cases, no shipping costs, no shop overheads.. Trickle down effect taking place… And dont get me wrong, im not saying the royalty structure is perfect, but this article is pointing out that the trend in norway is a positive trend
With the bubble-gum music being produced by mainstream media these days you couldn’t pay me enough to listen to it never mind downloading it for free.
Steve Jobs hated the quality of streamed or downloaded music! He used vinyl!
Yeah – but are you going to allow that to affect your own opinion?
Spotify is a Trojan to get more and more dependent on the electronic grid so the system can keep tabs on people and their habits.
The Ordinal Gematria of Spoify is 11
http://www.gematrix.org/?word=spotify
# Another nasty evasive spying tool developed by the CIA.
Huh? In English please
monkeysocks _ A Picture will state a 1000 words…
That picture raises more questions than it answers
@Frank, why do I care if somebody wants to spy on my listening habits….good luck to em.
There may be help available for you Frank.
Fozz_Maybe not now but with the rate Europe is heading certainly in a few years time.
Arresting an 8 year old kid in France for making a stupid comment FFS.
Not alone can they spy on you they can also be selective on what they want you to listen to in due time. Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle and refunds purchasers.
In George Orwell’s “1984,” government censors erase all traces of news articles embarrassing to Big Brother by sending them down an incineration chute called the “memory hole.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html
Of course they do, Frank.
Oops. Wrong edition. Never the less…
nice
-The new scenario with streaming music is infinitely better and it will only improve as personalisation engines improve. Its like you own personalised radio service without listening to ads and a big mouthed dj.
- the consumer was being ripped off with expensive cds etc and billionaire musicians, producers and corporations.
- even the musicians were suffering from drug abuse etc from the godlike status and infinite wealth they acquired.
- there will always get a place for torrents to keep check on the streaming sites and artists etc when they inevitably get greedy.
- also there is more scope for new artists to break in with more emphasise on live performances and the easy access of the internet.
- overall music is more widely available and everyone gains basically.
-long live the internet and its innovators.
I have stopped downloading illegal music too. The couple of TB I have is quite sufficient.
I have google play. Dont mind the €10 a month for unlimited music. On the other hand movie piracy will be a problem until the movie industry offer a similar streaming service. Netflix is a pile of shite.
To use Spotify ie
Google music for €7.99 & space for 20k of my own songs. I have no reason to pirate music
Big fan of spotify!
still haven’t used this spotify, is there a free option? and you have to have an internet connection to listen all the time? thats crap. thats inconvenient.
Did you bother looking for the figures, I guess not.
Just so how lazy you are, revenue was down in real terms
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