A/HRC/35/15 detention centres. He added that the information shared by the panellists was not new to anyone, as lack of information or evidence was not a problem. He highlighted that since the Nuremberg trials, there had not been a context with such a large amount of evidence and witnesses. The problem was the lack of political will to stop the carnage. 35. Mr. Darwish added that detentions in the Syrian Arab Republic, such as his, that of his wife, parents and father-in-law, occurred with some legal cover provided either by government courts or by sharia courts. Field military courts had issued thousands of death sentences without respecting due process. The recently published report by Amnesty International was only part of a much graver reality. Extermination, a term used by the Commission of Inquiry, was ongoing. Those atrocities, which had been committed for six years, were continuing as the Human Rights Council was in session. Civilians, including women and children, who had committed no crime were dying under torture. 36. The answer to the frequent questions on how extremism had come about, on why young people were joining criminal gangs and on the activities of terrorists groups lay in Syrian detention centres and prisons. The root causes of terrorism needed to be looked into in order for terrorism to be defeated. 37. The dream of many Syrians was for the war to come to an end, but they wondered how peace and a political solution could be achieved while hundreds of thousands of Syrians were detained or missing; how there could be real peace without accountability for the crimes committed. Referring to the political negotiations, Mr. Darwish warned that the decision to raise the issue of detainees during the talks in Astana instead of in Geneva had sent a negative signal, as the issue became limited to an exchange of prisoners between warlords. None of the warring parties was concerned with many of the categories of persons detained, including human rights defenders. They mostly cared about the interests of combatants, not about artists, lawyers or activists. 38. Mr. Darwish ended by expressing the hope that the children of his torturers would live in peace, just as he hoped his own children would. He added that, in order to avoid vengeful acts, a genuine transitional justice process was required. Without it, the ground would be laid for a civil war that would erase what was left of the Syrian Arab Republic and its people. Without accountability, the international community would send a wrong signal to criminals throughout the world, giving them the green light to act freely and continue to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. 39. Syrians paid the highest price for the presence of takfiri and extremist groups such as ISIL and Jabhat al-Nusrah and therefore had the biggest interest in eradicating extremism and terrorism. Mr. Darwish warned that the mistakes made in Iraq were being replicated. The situation in the Syrian Arab Republic and the entire Middle East required a comprehensive solution based on justice and democratic change as the way to guarantee sustainable peace and eradicate terrorism. IV. Summary of the discussion 40. During the interactive phase of the panel discussion, the following delegations spoke (in order of intervention): the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (on behalf of France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States of America), Norway (on behalf of the Nordic countries), Bahrain (on behalf of the Gulf Cooperation Council), the European Union, Spain, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Uruguay, Germany, Israel, Belgium, Qatar, Slovenia, Liechtenstein, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, France, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the Maldives, the Netherlands, the United States, the Russian Federation, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal and Iraq. 41. The following NGOs contributed to the discussion: the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Human Rights Watch, the World Council of Arameans (Syriacs), Africa Culture Internationale and the International Organization for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. 8