President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Putin and former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad deserve to be imprisoned for the atrocities of their regimes.
The President of Ukraine posted a post dedicated to Human Rights Day on social media.
‘Brave’ Assad fled to Putin. Where will Putin run to? This year's Human Rights Day is accompanied by horrific photos of Syrian prisons and torture chambers that were opened after Assad's escape. People have been humiliated there for years. Men and women. They were beaten, tortured, raped. Thousands and thousands of people went through this factory of violence,’ Zelenskyy wrote.
He noted that the Assad regime had been based solely on violence for decades.
‘And this is exactly what all the regimes supported by Putin are like. We have seen the same prisons, torture chambers, unspeakable violence, humiliation, beatings, torture, rape and other crimes on our territory in every settlement that was occupied by Russian invaders. Russia is a prison state that can hold someone else's stolen land only thanks to the prisons and torture chambers it places there,’ the statement reads.
According to the President, since the beginning of the Russian occupation, repression and torture have always followed the tanks.
‘We first saw this on our land in Crimea in 2014, when the Russian occupation led to repression of the indigenous people, the largest Muslim community in Ukraine - the Crimean Tatars, as well as journalists and political figures. Then Russia continued its horrific human rights violations in the occupied Donbas, including the notorious ‘Izolyatsia’ prison,’ the Head of State noted.
He noted that since February 2022, Russia has extended these practices to all other occupied territories. The atrocities have increased in scale and cruelty.
‘That's why we, Ukrainians, are so moved when we see Syrians coming out of Assad's prisons and torture chambers. Assad and Putin are not just vassals and overlords. They are accomplices in violence. Dictators like Assad cannot survive without dictators like Putin. And Putin will try to avenge Assad's fall,’ the president wrote.
He noted that this is why we need unity and strength to stand up to regimes that sow only humiliation and leave behind only suffering, pain and ruin.
According to him, by helping Ukraine to fight against the Russian dictatorship, the international community is helping many other regions of the world to restore security and achieve protection from violence.
‘There must be punishment for horrific atrocities and human rights violations. In fact, only Putin and Assad deserve to be in prison, not the innocent people they have been imprisoning for years,’ the President of Ukraine concluded.