This is a letter from Noor Altal to Thomas Bach, the President of the International Olympic Committee, sent via The Syria Campaign and Syrian British Consortium on 17th July 2024.
Dear Mr Bach,
I am writing to share with you pertinent information from the Syrian British Consortium’s (SBC) ongoing investigation into a member of the Syrian Olympics team, Omar Aroub, and to request that you accept a public petition to ban Omar Aroub from the Olympics, signed by over 7.000 people, prior to your Executive Board meeting on 20 July. You can view the petition here: thesyriacampaign.org/olympics.
While at Damascus University I was detained and tortured by members of the National Union of Syrian Students (NUSS), the de facto arm of the regime on campus, who handed me over to the state security services. There I was tortured again and left with mental scars I’ll never forget. I sought refuge in Europe with my family and I thought I’d be far from war criminals here. However, now I have learnt that Omar Aroub, who ordered the detention, torture and killing of university student protesters during the Syrian revolution, is expected to be welcomed to Paris 2024.
Aroub is the Vice President of the General Sports Federation in Syria as well as the Chairman of the Syrian Paralympic Committee. He visited Paris in 2023 in his capacity as Chairman of the Paralympic Games Committee to prepare for Syria’s participation in the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris. He is expected to represent the Syrian team in Paris later this month.
When the Syrian conflict broke out in March 2011, Aroub held a leadership position within the NUSS, which purports to represent Syrian students within Syria and abroad but has been revealed in multiple publicly available reports to have coordinated a systematic crackdown against university students, including through patrolling university grounds for anti-regime activity, arresting and torturing students, handing students over to security services, and generally intimidating and harassing students.
Witness testimony taken by SBC, as well as open-source research, indicate that Aroub played a central role in coordinating the NUSS’s crackdown against students in Aleppo University, including through the violent suppression of peaceful protests and through the detention and torture of students. In 2011, Aroub told the heads of NUSS administrative bodies at Aleppo University to suppress protests “at all costs”, encouraging those under his command to inflict maximum violence, against protesters and anyone in their periphery. He instructed those in charge of the Student Residences to throw regime-opposing students out of fourth-floor windows. Aroub was in direct communication with State security forces.
Since the report by the Syrian British Consortium was published, over 60 people have come forward to say that they were victims of the NUSS.
In 2012, Aroub was further appointed as the Deputy Commander of the Baath Brigades (Kata’eb al-Baath), a militia of approximately 10,000 fighters affiliated with the Syrian regime forces and deployed primarily in Aleppo governorate. The Baath Brigades participated extensively in the attack against Old Aleppo in early 2014 as well as attacks against the student body at the Aleppo University. The names of some of its leaders, including Hilal Hilal and Ammar Saati, have been listed on international sanctions lists.
The Olympics are a global celebration which aim to make a better world through sport. Yet the Syrian team is represented by a man who ordered the commission of war crimes through his roles in the NUSS and the Baath Brigades. He is part of a regime that is yet to be brought to justice and continues to commit atrocities against civilians. Aroub should be standing trial, not elevated to a podium in Paris. His presence in Paris would serve a blow to victims and survivors of the crimes that he committed with impunity throughout his tenure.
Thousands of people of conscience around the world have signed a petition calling on you to ban Aroub from participating in the Paris 2024 Olympics, and to prevent the Syrian regime from using this global celebration as a cover for its crimes. I would like to hand-deliver this petition to you before your meeting on 20 July at the Hôtel du Collectionneur. I would appreciate your written response agreeing to collect the petition.
Sincerely,
Noor Altal