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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