Who will face justice for the war in Syria?
Beyond Today
BBC
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 26 November 2018
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The war in Syria could be the crime of the century. The conflict has been raging for nearly 8 years and, in that time, some estimate that 500,000 people have been killed. The government of President Assad has caused more of these deaths but both sides have committed atrocities which have cost civilian lives. Who should face justice and will some sort of large scale tribunal like the one that followed the war in Yugoslavia ever be held? BBC Monitoring’s Amira Fathalla and Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen try to make some sense of the conflicting narratives of the Syrian war.
Producers: Becky Lipscombe and Harriet Noble.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:06.1 | Hello, I'm Matthew Price with Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:10.2 | We ask one big question about one big story every weekday. |
| 0:14.0 | Today, who will face justice for the Syrian war. The doctor has had a house. I'm Amira Fertala from the Middle East team. |
| 0:47.0 | I'm Amira Fertala from BBC Monitoring's Middle East team, which over the weekend has been looking |
| 0:51.2 | into footage and news reports on allegations |
| 0:54.1 | that a chemical attack has been carried out in Syria. One of them shows people |
| 0:59.7 | appearing to be treated in a medical facility, some people being taken off ambulances and stretches. |
| 1:06.0 | Men, women, and children, and some of them spoke to the Sanna correspondent as well, telling them that they had difficulty breathing, that their eyes were |
| 1:17.2 | streaming, and one or two mentioned that they had smelt, sort of a smell beforehand. |
| 1:24.0 | So what's the government saying this is evidence of? |
| 1:27.0 | The government has accused rebel groups of carrying out a chemical attack using chlorine gas on to or at least on |
| 1:35.2 | residential areas. When we compare it to videos we've seen of previously |
| 1:41.0 | reported chlorine gas attacks. |
| 1:43.7 | Something seems slightly different. |
| 1:46.0 | The pace of movement by the medics is fairly slow by comparison. |
| 1:50.0 | There's a general calm, not a lot of the commotion that we have seen when opposition groups have accused the government of using |
| 1:57.3 | chlorine gas against civilians. |
| 1:59.5 | So in some people's minds at least there are question marks over exactly what this footage shows. |
| 2:05.6 | But the facts are what the government says there was a chemical attack? |
| 2:10.1 | The government on Saturday said there was a chemical attack and it specifically mentioned |
| 2:14.5 | chlorine gas and accused rubble groups of being behind it. |
... |
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