SYRIA: Nusra gunmen execute child before parents

[11 June, Amman] - 

Syria’s main opposition group lashed out on Monday at the execution a day earlier of a 15-year-old child at the hands of unidentified Islamist gunmen who accused him of blasphemy.

Members of an Al Qaeda-linked Islamist group in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo executed the boy in front of his parents on Sunday as punishment for what the group regarded as a heretical comment, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Mohammad Qataa was shot in the face and neck a day after being seized, said the pro-opposition monitoring group, which is based in Britain and uses a network of observers across Syria.

“The Observatory cannot ignore these crimes, which only serve the enemies of the revolution and the enemies of humanity,” said the group’s leader Rami Abdul Rahman.

A photo released by the Observatory showed Qataa’s face with his mouth and jaw bloodied and destroyed, as well as a bullet wound in his neck.

The gunmen took Qatta on Saturday and brought him back alive in the early hours of Sunday to his wooden stand, with whiplash marks visible on his body.

“People gathered around him and a member of the fighting brigade said: ‘Generous citizens of Aleppo, disbelieving in God is polytheism and cursing the prophet is a polytheism. Whoever curses even once will be punished like this.” 

“He then fired two bullets from an automatic rifle in view of the crowd and in front of the boy’s mother and father, and got into a car and left,” the report said.

Qataa’s parents said the youth had taken part in pro-democracy demonstrations in Aleppo.

“The National Coalition condemns every act that violates the Syrian people’s values and the principles of the (rebel) Free Syrian Army,” the group said in a statement.

“Anyone who breaches treaties and international conventions, and commits any war crimes will stand trial, regardless of who they are,” the Coalition added.

The Observatory condemned the execution as “criminal and a gift to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.”

On Monday, a network of citizen journalists in Aleppo distributed a video interview with the child’s parents.

The boy’s mother is shown wailing as she describes her loss.

“I asked them why they killed him...We are with neither side (in Syria’s conflict). We just look after ourselves... Why did you kill my son? Is he a terrorist?”

FURTHER INFORMATION:

• Read more on children's rights in Syria
• Read the UN Study on Violence against Children
• Find out more about CRIN's campaign to end inhuman sentencing of children