Violent Hatred 'In Good Faith'

"We fear that because representatives, or would-be representatives, of some groups, came to the committee and sat there, that the Liberals fear backlash against them within some communities and that because of that, they have cancelled today's meeting."

"If the Liberals had, in the matter of religious exemptions, the same courage that they have for oil and gas infrastructure, this would have been dealt with a long time ago."

"[The minister proposed that] our amendments, particularly of course the one putting an end to the religious exemption, be integrated into C-9 in order for it to be adopted with the Bloc Quebecois's support because no one else was interested in doing it and the Bloc Quebecois holds the balance of power at the justice committee."

Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet 

Toronto Police attend Pro-Palestinian demonstration at Yonge and Dundas Sts. in Toronto on Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024. Photo by Caryma Sa’d

Unsaid, but quite well understood is the identity of those would-be representatives, the Muslim community in Canada's various representative groups, all of which are offended by a move by the minority federal government, requiring support from opposition parties to pass bills that would affect them. As in 'freedom of speech' careening into hate speech which moves beyond the civil permissible into the dark areas of threats and support for violence to the point where killing a certain segment of the population is inferred, if not outright stated.

 

The Canadian-Jewish community has been increasingly targeted by various Islamist Muslim groups within Canada in constant 'demonstrations' and mass rallies where masked, keffiyeh-clad, Palestinian-flag -waving groups gather in the public square, block highways, pose threats in front of synagogues, Jewish parochial schools, Jewish community centres, private Jewish businesses, municipal council chambers to shout the invectives of 'globalize the intifada', 'final solution', 'from the river to the sea', and 'Jews go back to Europe!'

 

There are laws in Canada that prohibit this kind of action and activities that border on and often exceed permissible public social behaviour where property is damaged, defaced, and otherwise vandalized, threats are issued and peoples' ingress and egress to schools, meetings, hospitals are impeded. Much less vehicular traffic stopped, including fire trucks and ambulances when shouting, threatening groups fill the space and become deliberately immovable, or prostate themselves in unison in displays of public prayer.

 

Unfortunately, those laws have not been enforced; neither municipal authorities nor the police associated with those municipalities act to stop such events, clear the streets and apprehend those whose actions stand out as abusive and threatening and criminal in nature. What is cited is the sacrosanct right of  'freedom of speech', amidst the intimidating scenarios. And the propensity of many wearing masks, holding placards damning Israel and shouting 'globalize the intifada' to become physically violent, including toward police, when arrests will take place.

 

In a speech to protesters on Oct. 28, Imam Adil Charkaoui, speaking Arabic, denounced "Zionist aggressors" and called on Allah to "kill the enemies of the people of Gaza and to spare none of them." X

 

Now, instead of using the laws prescribing acceptable social behaviour, a new anti-hate bill is being proposed, one that will remove a clause forgiving abusive activity if it is done in a spirit of 'sincere belief' in a religious context which would exonerate say, a Muslim who proclaims 'kill the Jews', because something in his sacred scripture allows that. The Canadian Council of Imams attended the last committee meeting discussing the amendment to the Criminal Code's religious defences for hate speech charges. They opposed the religious defences removal.

 

The proposed legislation seeks to make it an offence to intimidate or obstruct at places of worship. Presented by Justice Minister Sean Fraser, it proposes the criminalization of hate promotion through the display of symbols that have links to designated terror groups. The rise in police-reported antisemitic violence in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war has spurred Jewish advocacy groups to call for additional measures of protection for the Jewish-Canadian population. 

 

It was the Bloc Quebecois's proposal for the religious defences to be removed dealing with the 'wilful promotion of hate' and promotion of antisemitism, defined by the law as minimizing or denying the Holocaust, which states specifically that anyone in 'good faith' who expresses or communicates an opinion "on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text" not be convicted of hate speech. The Bloc has advocated for the religious exemptions to be removed from the Criminal Code. 

 

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered in downtown Montreal in October 2023. In November, Montreal police received a complaint about speeches made during those demonstrations. (Danielle Kadjo/Radio-Canada)

 

 

The Justice Inherent in Public Office Greed

"No explanation is provided beyond the Government's bald statement that judicial salaries are 'adequate', reflecting the Government's unabashed and improper substitution of its own view for that of the independent commission."

"It was at the very least incumbent on the Government to explain its differential treatment of the judiciary, who are not a class of civil servant."

"None of the three reasons given by the Government are legitimate reasons based on a reasonable factual foundation." 

Canadian Superior Courts Judges Association (CSCJA) lawsuit 

The federal government has rejected recommendations from the Judicial Compensation and Benefits Commission to boost judicial salaries. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

 

"[Government: We disagree with the Judicial Compensation and Benefits Commission’s findings, and cannot justify the raises at this time]."

"This disagreement is not intended as criticism of the commissioners and their process."

"Rather, it reflects a significant deterioration in the Canadian financial outlook, and a carefully considered difference of perspective on the evidence presented to the commission and how it should be weighed."

"Judicial salaries are adequate and, in any event, cannot be the source of new fiscal expenditure at a time of comprehensive expenditure review, including possible public sector job losses." 

"Annual statutory indexing using IAI [Industrial Aggregate Index] provides for increases to judicial salaries that in most years exceed increases to the cost of living. In other words, in most years, IAI indexing provides for what can fairly be characterized as a raise."

Federal government response 

So there it is, Canada's judges are taking the federal government to court, suing the government over its  refusal to further fund salaries that are already creeping into the half-million annual compensation for many judges. The Canadian Superior Courts Judges Association representing the interests of 1,400 sitting and retired judges in Canada has taken umbrage over the government's decision not to oblige judges with a $28,000 raise in salary.

 

The Federal Court is to address the situation, and as far as the CSCJA is concerned, should respond to this unjust ruling by the government by ordering Justice Minister Sean Fraser to reverse the decision to deny a raise to judges whose salaries will remain a paltry $414,900 if government has its way. The Commission in question was established in 1999 and is an independent panel which every four years hears arguments from government and judges then issues non-binding recommendations the government must respond to.

 

The Supreme Court of Canada is pictured in October. The government rejected a recommendation that federal judges get a raise of at least $28,000, citing 'a significant deterioration in the Canadian financial outlook.' (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

 

The Commission recommended in July that the government increase "inadequate" salaries for judges by $28,000 for most federally appointed judges and for the chief justices of the Supreme Court, $36,000 would do, arguing that to ensure the bench remained attractive to "outstanding candidates", such a  raise is necessary. "Current compensation for judges already includes annual indexation and strong pensions", responded the minister's spokesperson while downplaying the notion that judicial vacancies suffer from a lack of top candidates.

 

On behalf of the compensation-aggrieved judges, the Association charged that the Justice Minister, having failed to impress the commission with its argument prior to the conclusion recommending an increase, simply repeated the same purported reasons, an argument that failed to make its point first time around and failed again on its reiteration. "Current compensation for judges' salary and benefits already includes annual indexation and pensions" repeated another Ministry spokesperson.

 

Magistrates, argued the judges' association require a $60,000 raise retroactive to April 2024 to ensure the appeal of a position increasingly struggling to attract "outstanding candidates". Without that monetary inducement, the risk is that there will result a vacancy crisis since the position would be viewed as unappealing to private sector lawyers. The government response was that judges' salary and benefits, inclusive of "one of the best retirement plans in Canada, along with generous indexing needed no $60,000 "bonus" for the job to be attractive".

 

Furthermore, it added, with government plans to cut the public service by 40,000 employees as a cost-saving measure, there was no justification in supporting a raise of such dimensions. Canadian police associations, victims of crime, taxpayers and members of the Parliamentary opposition all decry the current justice system in Canada, where decisions are increasingly made in favour of malefactors and victims given short shrift. It is the disaffected public facing steep increases in crime with criminals given bail and then repeating their offences, that ultimately fund justices' salaries.

 

The commission suggested the salary for the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada increase from $510,000 to $546,000, while the eight other justices would get a $33,000 raise. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

"Allowing such a response to stand would render the commission process meaningless and erode public confidence in the independence of Canada's courts. A strong, expert, and independent judiciary is essential to the fair and timely delivery of justice."

"The Supreme Court of Canada made clear that while the Government is not required to accept Commission recommendations, if it chooses to depart from them, it has a duty to provide legitimate reasons."

Meaningful engagement with the Commission's work is not optional, it is a constitutional obligation." 

CSCJA lawyer Jean-Michel Boudreau

 DONE. Flogging a dead horse.

 

Jihad, a Muslim's Destiny: The Muslim Brotherhood

Adil Charkaoui's speech to kill the Jews has drawn broad condemnation from politicians like Premier François Legault and groups like the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. (Adil Charkaoui/X)

"An Explanatory Memorandum for the Muslim Brotherhood's Goals in North America."

"The process of settlement is a 'Civilization-Jihadist Process' with all the word means."

"The Ikhwan ['brotherhood'] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

"It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes and there is no escape from that destiny." 

The Muslim Brotherhood

 

"Canada's permissive environment, shaped by a fragile national identity, a culture of victimhood, vote-bank politics, and unchecked immigration, has made it the ideal incubator for Islamist expansion."

"[Canada has] become 'ground zero' for their soft-power operations, from campaigns to criminalize 'Islamophobia' to the indoctrination of children under the banner of 'anti-Palestinian racism'."

Joe Adam George 

Muslims pray outside McGill University's Roddick Gate during pro-Palestinian protest in Montreal Monday October 7, 2024 on the one year anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel. (John Mahoney / MONTREAL GAZETTE)

 

The Muslim Brotherhood and its many associated arms well established in Canada as Muslim-Canadian groups whose purpose is to advance 'human rights', the protection of the Muslim-Canadian population of several million from criticism under threat of being labelled 'Islamophobic' in a greater society that shrinks from being thought of as 'racist' has infiltrated every level of society and government. Sitting in municipal chambers, on school boards, as directors in national public institutions, and among the professorial class in academia, advance a narrative of Muslim rights.

 

The installation of Islamic Sharia will once again crop  up as the Muslim demographic increases. Muslim groups, particularly those who associate their activities with the 'Palestinian cause', feel entitled to express their hatred toward a much smaller demographic of Canadian Jews by amassing mobs of anti-Israel, pro-Hamas agitators who have for the past several years since the Palestinian terrorist orgy of sadistic savagery in southern Israel on October 7/23, marched through city streets chanting 'globalize the intifada', 'Jews back to Europe', 'Final Solution', and 'From the river to the sea'. 

 

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered in downtown Montreal in October 2023. In November, Montreal police received a complaint about speeches made during those demonstrations. (Danielle Kadjo/Radio-Canada)

 

In the process demonizing Israel as a 'genocidal' nation intent on exterminating Palestinians when it is the Palestinians who have for generations launched attacks against Israel and Jews, while Israel is left defending its population, against those portraying themselves as pitiable victims of Israeli aggression. The CEO of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, originally established with a focus on the Holocaust, has decided to mount a permanent 'Nakba' exhibit, damning the creation of Israel, grieving the 'catastrophe' it brought to Palestinian ambitions to own the geography of Judean ancestral land. Isha Khan, the CEO, assures that the exhibit will undergo the strictest adherence to the museum's human rights goal.

 

While the American Congress and Senate are working toward blacklisting the Muslim Brotherhood and its arms like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Canada's Liberal government tolerates Islamist 'pro-Palestinian' marches through Jewish neighbourhoods, hostile gatherings of Islamists in front of Jewish old-age homes, parochial schools, and synagogues that intimidate and threaten Canadian Jews. Pro-Palestinian encampments on  university grounds that targeted Jewish students saw no action from any level of Canadian government to protect Canadian Jews.

 

That inaction led to criminal assaults against Jewish institutions and private businesses that were vandalized, fire-bombed and shot at. Public gatherings of Muslims for group prayer sessions, shutting down traffic and access to the public have been tolerated, as 'expressions of free speech and religion', while the very fact of that kind of 'occupation' is an Islamic expression of conquest of the public sphere. Canada's political, cultural and educational institutions have been subjected to entryism by Muslim jihadists using the soft-touch approach to insurgency.

 

Muslim prayer in front of a Montreal church   Screenshot

 

Groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, members of the Iranian IRGC, are present in Canada representing the ideologies of jihad and terror, and official Canada does nothing to deter their presence, nor their criminal activities in money-laundering funds from criminal activities. The Brotherhood was described by a member of the European Parliament as "a clear and present challenge to European values" whose response was "to persuade the European Commission to change its policy and stop all contributions to Islamist organizations".

 

Ward Elcock, formerly director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) testifying on terrorist organizations that raise funds in Canada, warned Canada "cannot become, through inaction or otherwise, what might be called an unofficial state sponsor of terrorism", back in 1998. For the past ten years and counting, the government of Canada has been invested in appeasing Islamist terror, taking statements and accusations levelled against the State of Israel by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas as credible.

 

Slowly and surely the Muslim Brotherhood's silent stealth within Western countries, establishing itself as a legitimate voice of reasonable accommodation for the religion of peace as the true face of Islam -- as opposed to the murderously violent Islamist jihadists ravaging Africa, making incursions into Latin America, and roiling the Middle East, where most countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Jordan ban the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization --  has gained it a solid footing of trust, only now beginning to fray. But not yet in Canada.

 

Pro-Palestinian protesters at the corner of Bathurst Street and Sheppard Avenue in Toronto, Nov. 2, 2025. (Credit: Lila Sarick)

 

India's Backtrack on Cyber Security Rules

"Accounts on instant messaging and calling apps continue to work even after the associated SIM is removed, deactivated, or moved abroad, enabling anonymous scams, remote 'digital arrest' frauds and government‑impersonation calls using Indian numbers."

"Long‑lived web/desktop sessions let fraudsters control victims' accounts from distant locations without needing the original device or SIM, which complicates tracing and takedown. A session can currently be authenticated once on a device in India and then continue to operate from abroad, letting criminals run scams using Indian numbers without any fresh verification."

"This mechanism enables service providers to validate, through a decentralized and privacy-compliant platform, whether a mobile number used for a service genuinely belongs to the person whose credentials are on record – thereby enhancing trust in digital transactions."

Department of Telecommunications, India  Monday

 

"Government has decided not to make the pre-installation mandatory for mobile manufacturers." 

India's Ministry of Communications  Wednesday 

 

"This is a welcome development, but we are still awaiting the full text of the legal order that should accompany this announcement, including any revised directions under the Cyber Security Rules, 2024."

"For now, we should treat this as cautious optimism, not closure, until the formal legal direction is published and independently confirmed." 

Internet Freedom Foundation  

Sanchar Saathi app logo and Indian flag appear in this illustration taken December 2, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

"[The app] 'Sanchar-Saathi', translated 'communication partner' in Hindi, [must be] preinstalled on all mobile handsets manufactured or imported for use in India."

"[Phone makers are asked to ensure the app is readily visible and accessible to the end users at the time of first  use or device  setup and that its functionalities are not disabled or restricted."

"[For those devices already manufactured and in the market across the country], the manufacturer and importers of mobile handsets shall make an endeavour to push the App through software updates."

Government of India declaration 

 

"[The order] represents a sharp and deeply worrying expansion of executive control over personal digital devices."

The state is asking every smartphone user in India to accept an open-ended, updatable surveillance capability on their primary personal device, and to do so without the basic guardrails that a constitutional democracy should insist on."

Internet Freedom Foundation  advocacy group

 

"[The rules are] clearly [an invasion of privacy]." 

"How do we know this app isn't used to access files and messaging on our device, which is unencrypted on device? Or a future update won't do that?"

"This is clearly an invasion of our privacy."

Cybersecurity analyst Nikhil Pahwa 

Internet privacy groups and political opposition had raised concerns that the app could be used as a mass surveillance tool. Photograph: Firdous Nazir/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

 

Smartphone makers on Monday received orders from New Delhi to henceforth pre-install the government-operated cybersecurity app, one that cannot be removed. India's mobile phone users number a massive 1.6 billion. According to government authorities, the app is meant to protect users from fraud; an ostensibly laudable concern meant to protect Indian citizens. Manufacturers were given 90 days to comply with the new rules detailed in a press release.

 

The app, it was explained. was specifically designed so that users could block and track lost or stolen phones. It also enables them to identify and disconnect false mobile subscriptions in their name, as well as a number of other protective functions. According to government figures, the app had to date assisted in the tracing of over 2.6 million phones. Statistics that failed to placate human right advocates and those politicians alarmed over the prospect of the possibility of  emerging serious consequences.

 

Opponents of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Congress party lost no time in demanding an immediate rollback of the order they described as unconstitutional. "Big Brother cannot watch us",  said Congress politician K.C. Venugopal. "A preloaded government app that cannot be uninstalled is a dystopian tool to monitor every Indian. It is a means to watch over every movement, interaction and decision of each citizen."

 

It is, in fact, a carbon copy of what pertains in China, where the Peoples' Republic monitors all of its equally numerous citizens' every move, in the world's largest, most populous communist country, and India's nemesis. As it happens, Russia issued a similar directive in August that ordered manufacturers to include a messaging platform named MAX on all new phones and tablets; yet another dictatorial regime intent on surveilling its public.

 

The backlash from cybersecurity experts was swift and condemnatory, however, in democratic India despite that 14 million users had downloaded the app, and that 2,000 frauds were being reported daily. Passed last week, made public on Monday, making registration mandatory, by Tuesday 600,000 new users registered. And by Wednesday, the order was rescinded

And nor were smartphone giants Apple and Samsung among others pleased; the new directives causing them to resist the app pre-installation on their phones.Condemnation and resistance that led the government by Wednesday to rescind the directive even while arguing that the move was necessary to verify the authenticity of handsets. India IS a democracy, after all and sensitive to any questioning of its upholding of democratic citizens' rights. 

India has 1.2 billion mobile users   Bloomberg via Getty Images

 

Compassion for Non-Citizen Criminals in Canadian Law

"A senior Liberal [Member of Parliament Kevin Lamoureux] debating my bill to stop leniency for serious crimes said this: 'If someone is going out raping another individual, do we really believe they'll get special treatment from a judge'?"

"The next day, there was a story of a non-Canadian raping a 13-year-old girl and impregnating her twice, and the rapist was given an adjournment to see the impact of a guilty pleas on what? His immigration status."

"Will the Liberals admit they were wrong?" 

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner. Photo by Adrian Wyld /The Canadian Press

 

"There are individuals who make bad decisions. Sometimes it does not necessarily justify a deportation."

"At the end of the day, with the types of crime that are being suggested, people are going to be deported anyway."

"If someone is going out there and raping another individual, do we really believe that they are going to get special treatment from a judge when they go before a court?"

"It is nowhere near the degree to which the Conservatives are trying to put it on the record."

Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux

 

"There are provisions in place if a non-citizen commits a crime and serves a sentence, they are removed from Canada."

"CBSA [Canada Border Services Agency] works on these cases and they prioritize criminal cases, in fact, when making removals."
Liberal MP Ruby Sahota

The Barrie courthouse at 75 Mulcaster St.  BarrieToday files

 

An unnamed now-47-year-old man, a non-citizen living in Bradford, Ontario pleaded guilty to "two counts of sexual interference, one charge of child luring and another to breaching his release conditions" last week, according to local news outlet BarrieToday. The man had met the girl at a convenience store when he was 44. He groomed her, and than raped her. This occurred on two separate occasions; each time the rape resulted in a pregnancy.

 

One of those pregnancies was carried to term. The  girl, now a few years older, has kept her baby. To protect identities of the girl and child, a publication ban is in place. Court orders to stay away from the girl were ignored by the man. He raped her again while out on release. When he breached conditions of his release a third time he was arrested and since has been  incarcerated for over two and a half years. The man is said to have had 13 children born to women he has been associated with over the years.  

"The actual harm (inflicted) are of the highest magnitude, [listing aggravating details in the case]."

"[The victim’s] normal social interactions were completely fractured. [She will be forever] entangled [with the man because she bore his child]."

"[Her 104-month sentence request was already a] mitigated number'."

Crown attorney Elizabeth Stokes  

The Crown had called for a 8.5-year prison sentence. However, the man, not a Canadian citizen, was permitted an adjournment as a reflection of how a lengthy potential prison sentence would affect his immigrant status. His guilty plea evidently, and his apology, are being weighed in a type of compassionate exoneration of his sexual crimes, specifically the violence suffered by a trusting child whose childhood was essentially viciously ended. 

 

Immigrants are conventionally subject to deportation if convicted of a serious crime. Yet in the past several years, sentencing has tended to favour 'compassion' for crimes committed by immigrants arriving from different cultures. Needless to say, rape as a cultural proclivity does not conform to the values of any civilized society. And much less so violent crimes committed against children. 

 

The man is now due back in court for a sentencing hearing, on January 29, with the Crown seeking a ten-year sentence. This aura of compassion for violent criminals exudes from the ranks of the Liberal government in Canada. The Conservative official opposition has stated time and again its calls for tougher penalties for violent crime, and in this instance such crimes should be viewed through the lens of consequential desserts. 

"In recent years, there have been multiple instances of judges issuing sentences to non-citizens convicted of serious crimes that were designed to allow them to evade deportation."

"[This creates a] two-tiered system between non-citizens and those with Canadian citizenship."

"[This is] unfair [listing seven examples of convicted non-citizens who received] lenient sentences in very recent history."

"Despite the judge admitting that six to 12 months would have been a more appropriate sentence, this was to avoid deportation. The judge even said this." 

Michelle Rempel Garner 

Indeed, before the advent of the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau for the decade following his election in 2015, criminal law application in Canada has been considerably softened in favour of the  criminal class, much to the outrage of Canadian police associations, and certainly of the victims of crime. The 'progressive', left-Liberal government of Canada in that decade -- and continuing under a new Liberal government -- altered much of the traditional values of Canadian society, while inviting an inundation of new immigrants, refugees, illegal migrants without due consideration to their background cultures and histories.  

"[It is an] unbelievable perversion of justice [that non-citizen criminals were receiving lower sentences] in order to allow them to stay."

"It should be a stated policy of our system to get criminals out of Canada."

"If someone is not a citizen, not a Canadian, and commits a crime, then they should be shown the door."

Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre 

Syria's Mass Graves

 

"Shortly after the fall of Bashar Assad in Syria in December 2024, reports emerged of mass graves being uncovered in liberated areas."

"Grim as such discoveries are, they should come as little surprise. The scale of the regime’s torture and killings in its detention facilities became evident years earlier, when in January 2014 a forensic photographer defected and left the country with a cache of 55,000 photos of people who had been tortured and died in detention."

"As an expert in forensic anthropology and mass casualties in conflict, I was asked to evaluate what became known as the “Caesar photographs.” What was clear to me then, and is even more so now, is that those photos represented a systematic approach to torturing, killing and disappearing massive numbers of people by the Assad regime."

"With Assad now gone, the newly formed government of the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has vowed to seek justice for the crimes Syrians suffered under Assad. Doing so will be difficult, even with the civil war in Syria being one of the better monitored conflicts in recent history. Yet it is a task that is imperative for the sake of pursuing justice in a shattered country and reducing the likelihood of violence returning to Syria."

Stefan Schmitt,  Project Lead for International Technical Forensic Services Global Forensic Justice Center, Florida International University 

Members of the volunteer Syrian Civil Defense conduct work at a mass grave in the Baghdad Bridge area outside Damascus, Syria, on Dec. 17, 2024. Emin Sansar/Anadolu via Getty Images

 

"According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the uncovered graves were distributed as follows:

*November 6: Remains believed to belong to more than 5 people were found inside a farm near the village of Al-Ghizlaniyah on the road to Damascus International Airport.

*November 11: Remains of 3 people were found in a mass grave in the village of Tal Melah, northwest of Hama, during rubble removal. The victims’ identities remain unknown.

*November 17: Remains of 6 people were discovered inside the Air Defense Battalion "Batchoura" in the town of Otaya in Rif Damascus, during sewage rehabilitation work.

*November 30: A mass grave containing the remains of 10 unidentified individuals was found on the Tarablous road opposite the village of Al-Mazraa west of Homs, during construction work."

ANHA, Hawar News Agency  

The month of November witnessed a series of shocking discoveries across several Syrian regions, where a number of mass graves containing the remains of 24 individuals were uncovered during debris removal and infrastructure cleaning operations. ANHA

 

 Following the overthrow of Syria's dictatorial president Bashar al-Assad in December, families of missing Syrians would arrive a the Najha cemetery hoping to find remains of their missing loved ones. They were intent on digging up the mass grave there marked by mounds of overturned dirt with their shovels. Once the realization set in that what they would find would represent bones in body bags with no way left to them to determine to whom those bones belonged, they gave up their desperate searches.

 

Tens of thousands of Syrians whom the Assad regime considered opponents had been detained and disappeared during the 14-year civil war between the Alawite Shiite regime of Bashar al-Assad and the majority Sunni Syrians. Many of those in Assad's prisons were killed under torture or executed, pointed out human rights groups. This was a regime that used chemical agents in their bombs to asphyxiate people, barrel bombs to tear them limb to limb, helicopter gunships targeting people waiting in bread lines.

 

Uncountable numbers of regime victims were hurriedly buried at the Najha cemetery outside the capital Damascus. Syrian families are haunted by the fate of their missing relatives. No fewer than 60 mass graves have so far been identified in Syria, with new ones discovered on a regular basis. The exacting forensic work to determine the identity of each of the bodies being recovered has become a problem for Syria's new government which has pledged accountability and justice for the Assad regime's war crimes.

 

For one man, 36-year-old Khaled al-Mishtowli, the loss of his family members are many in number; three brothers, his father, three cousins and two aunts. The agonizing work of identifying the bodies would have been advanced, he says wistfully, if those burying them "had at least buried the people's ID cards with their bodies".  The process of of exhuming and identifying the bodies will be a long, arduous, undertaking, which he and others call on the government and international groups to undertake. 

 

An uncovered mass grave believed to contain the remains of civilians killed by the ousted Assad regime in Daraa, Syria. Bekir Kasim/Anadolu via Getty Images

 

According to the Syrian minister of emergency and disaster management, about 140,000 Syrians are missing. The figure of 400,000 deaths by the Assad regime has long been recognized. In 2013, Mr. al-Mishtowli explains, his relatives began disappearing from their town of Sayida Zeinab on Damascus' outskirts as they were engaged in ordinary pursuits, or on their way back home from their workplaces. His family members, all of whom were Sunni Muslim, were apprehended by pro-regime Shiite militias, he believes.

 

"We are asking for anyone, international organizations, the United Nations, anyone who can exhume the bodies and identify them", he pleaded. In response, a spokeswoman for a new Syrian commission on missing people responded: "This is a very long process, one that began now but will unfortunately extend over many years". Her commission will be dependent on international organizations to assist in building the required technical and forensic capabilities such as DNA laboratories. 

 

"The international community has to help the Syrian authorities to build infrastructure first, and to train their people to learn how to eventually do this on their own", explained Karla Quintana of the U.N. Independent Institution on Missing Persons in Syria, -- whereas in the past the United Nations and other international bodies took responsibility for exhuming mass graves.  

"We really haven’t seen anything quite like this since the Nazis."

"From the secret police who disappeared people from their streets and homes, to the jailers and interrogators who starved and tortured them to death, to the truck drivers and bulldozer drivers who hid their bodies, thousands of people were working in this system of killing."

"We are talking about a system of state terror, which became a machinery of death."

"I don’t have much doubt about those kinds of numbers given what we’ve seen in these mass graves."

Stephen Rapp, former U.S. war crimes ambassador at large

People search for human remains at a trench believed to be used as a mass grave on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus.   Aris Messinis / AFP via Getty Images