A/HRC/27/60 13. Journalists continue to be systematically targeted by ISIS. Two foreign journalists were detained by ISIS in Tal Abyad, (Ar Raqqah) after they explained that they were reporting on the ongoing conflict. They were subsequently interrogated and ill-treated in various ISIS detention facilities until late March 2014. On 29 April, ISIS executed a journalist in Tal Abyad. The detention and killing of journalists violates international humanitarian law and may amount to war crimes. 14. Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic Front fighters stationed near the Old City of Aleppo continue to fire improvised gas-canister explosives at the Citadel, targeting Government snipers stationed within. On 8 May, Ahrar al-Sham fighters remotely detonated explosives packed into a tunnel dug underneath the Citadel, allegedly used as a base for Government soldiers. On 31 May, they detonated a similar tunnel bomb near the Zahrawi market next to the Citadel. Repeated underground high-magnitude shockwaves have caused structural damage to the thirteenth century Citadel, a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site. 15. The whereabouts of the Syriac Orthodox and Greek Orthodox Archbishops of Aleppo, Yohanna Ibrahim and Paul Yazigi, abducted in Aleppo in April 2013, and of Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, abducted in Ar Raqqah city in January 2014, remain unknown. Dozens of journalists, both foreign and Syrian, remain in captivity, detained incommunicado because of their professional activities. Religious personnel and civilian journalists enjoy specific protection under international humanitarian law and must be respected and protected by all parties. 44

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