Could a Syrian war criminal take part in the Olympic Games in Paris? – DW – 07.07.2024

In August last year, a Syrian posted a picture of himself on Facebook. It shows him standing somewhat awkwardly and without smiling in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Al-Aroub’s friends, family and colleagues would probably not have been surprised to see the photo.

But a number of Syrian opposition journalists and activists This is because al-Aroub is close to the authoritarian Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian dictator is accused of having committed numerous war crimes against his own people during the 13-year civil war in the country, including attacks with chemical weapons.

Al-Aroub is considered a high-ranking member of the so-called Baath Brigades, a militia linked to the Assad government. He previously headed the National Union of Syrian Students (NUSS), which is also linked to the Assad regime.

However, Al-Aroub is also chairman of the Syrian National Paralympic Committee and was in the French capital for a meeting in the summer of 2023 when the tourist photo was taken.

“Ordered violent action”

Al-Aroub came to the attention of the London-based activist group Syrian British Consortium (SBC) when it recently investigated possible war crimes committed by the NUSS during anti-government protests between 2011 and 2013.

The year-long study, published in mid-Juneconfirmed “a pattern of systematic actions against university students, including detentions and torture on campus,” Yasmine Nahlawi, a senior investigator at the SBC, told DW.

“What we know is that he (al-Aroub) recruited other students to denounce protesters and participate in the violent crackdown on the protests. We know that he armed them with batons and there are reports that he also distributed firearms,” ​​Nahlawi said.

“We have witness testimony that he gave orders to use as much violence as necessary, including death. He ordered people to throw students critical of the regime out of dormitory windows and ordered (his) students to beat men on their genitals so hard that they would become infertile.”

Now Nahlawi and her colleagues fear that al-Aroub could return to Europe to compete in the Olympic Games in Paris, which begin in late July, or the Paralympics in Paris at the end of August.

With the help of London-based advocacy organization The Syria Campaign, they have launched a petition calling on organizers to exclude al-Aroub from the Paris Olympics.

Al-Aroub has participated in the Olympic Games before. He also took part in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo because, unlike other Syrian heads of state, there are no arrest warrants against him and he is not on a sanctions list.

Who is responsible?

Three people are expected to compete under the Syrian flag at the Paris Olympics, but it is not yet known how many people will compete in the Paralympics as the competitions are still ongoing.

But it is not the Syrian team that the activists in Europe are criticising, emphasises Nahlawi. Rather, it is the way in which the Syrian government is instrumentalising the athletes to polish its image.

Neither the International Olympic Committee (IOC) nor the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) seemed to consider that this issue fell within their jurisdiction.

“With regard to such allegations, there are many other organizations, including the International Criminal Court, that are better placed to investigate whether they are true or not,” the IPC said in a statement emailed to DW.

Another Paris 2024 spokesman said that for security and privacy reasons, they could not comment on whether al-Aroub had a so-called Paralympics pass.However, they added that all applications would have to be approved by the relevant government authorities.

A diplomatic source in the French government told DW that the Paralympic bids were currently being processed and that they would undergo the usual “administrative security checks.” The source also said that al-Aroub would not enjoy diplomatic immunity based solely on his role in the Olympics.

It would be difficult to simply arrest al-Aroub in Paris. There are some legal options – France can arrest people who have committed torture abroad – but the application of this law is limited.

Balance between sport and politics

Neither this kind of protest nor the apparent reluctance of Olympic organizers to intervene are surprising, says Adam Scharpf, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Copenhagen who studies how autocrats abuse sport for their own ends.

“Political tensions surrounding major sporting tournaments are probably the rule rather than the exception,” Scharpf told DW.

There is a long list of national committees that have been excluded from previous Olympics, including Germany and Japan after World War II, South Africa for around two decades under apartheid, and Afghanistan because of Taliban discrimination against women. More recently, athletes from Russia and Belarus are only allowed to participate as “internationally neutral athletes,” and there have also been calls to disinvite Israel because of the country’s ongoing actions in Gaza and the West Bank.

“Sport has always been political,” says Scharpf. “For organizations like the IOC, this inevitably means a dilemma. On the one hand, it is about taking the Olympic Charter and commitments to peace, international understanding and human rights seriously. On the other hand, one should not cooperate with repressive dictatorships and their representatives.”

With regard to the Syria case, Scharpf suspects another problem.

“The accusations (against al-Aroub) seem to relate, among other things, to his involvement in the Baath Brigades,” said Scharpf. But just like the NUSS, they also have no official ties to the Assad regime.

“We know that such groups are used strategically by governments in order to be able to later distance themselves from the violence they ordered. It’s about plausible deniability,” said Scharpf. “The weak link obviously makes it difficult to identify and punish people associated with such a group. It also allows organizations like the IOC to feign ignorance.”

In an email to DW, the Syrian Paralympic Committee rejected the allegations against al-Aroub, saying they were politically motivated. It did not say whether he would travel to Paris again.

If al-Aroub is deterred by the activists’ work and media coverage, the SBC’s Nahlawi said this would be considered a victory of sorts.

“Because the overarching message is that there should be no place for war criminals at the Olympics,” she concluded. “Giving war criminals a platform like this sends a terrible message to all the victims and their families who continue to seek justice.”

Edited by: Kate Hairsine