MOSCOW, February 7. /TASS/. The latest Amnesty International’s report about alleged mass executions and tortures in Syrian prisons is part of information campaign against the Syrian authorities, which however should let experts visit the country’s penitentiaries to have such accusations dropped, a senior Russian lawmaker said on Tuesday.
Amnesty International earlier released a report where it said that thousands of inmates had been hanged at the Saydnaya prison over the recent years.
Commenting on this report, Konstantin Kosachev, the chairman of the international committee of Russia’s Federation Council upper parliament house, said it lacks concrete facts. "Moreover, reports from one organization citing anonymous sources are not enough," he said. "This repost seems to be part of the ongoing information campaign against Syria’s authorities which triggered a civil war in that country back in 2011."
The Russian lawmaker noted however that the Syrian authorities "should provide access for public activists and experts to penitentiary facilities in order to remove or at least adjust these serious accusations until this campaign becomes irreversible."
He admitted that there might be problems with democracy in Syria, but they are not that dramatic as follows from the Amnesty International report. Apart from that, he reminded of the words Syrian President Bashar Assad had said at a meeting with a Russian parliamentary delegation in December 2016 that no regime can go on for long by means of repressions only. "Bashar could not have survived in conditions of civil war and with armed opposition at power is he enjoyed no serious support from society," Kosachev stressed.
He said he is confident that the Syrian authorities "are interested in repelling information attacks." "I am sure it is in Syria’s interests and I hope the Syrian authorities have enough counter arguments to rebuff such information attacks," he added.