witness

Caesar (anonymous)

قيصر (مجهول الهوية)

Also known as: Caesar • The Military Photographer

Journeys

Caesar: 53,000 Photographs of the Dead

Caesar's act of moral courage — continuing to document, continuing to work, smuggling evidence for two years at unimaginable personal risk — created the most powerful evidentiary record of any ongoing atrocity. His photographs ended the plausible deniability the Assad regime had maintained about its detention practices.

Biography

Caesar is the pseudonym of a Syrian military photographer who worked for the Syrian government's military police, photographing the corpses of detainees who died in Assad's detention centers. Between 2011 and 2013 he smuggled out 53,275 photographs documenting systematic torture and mass death. The images — authenticated by a war crimes legal team — were presented to the UN Security Council and became the most compelling physical evidence of the Assad regime's systematic murder of detained civilians. Caesar fled Syria in 2013. His identity remains secret for security reasons. The US Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act (2019) is named after him.

Documentation Status

VerificationConfirmed

Journeys1

Key Facts

Place:Syria

Nationality:Syrian