Peta Credlin calls out media, human rights bodies for silence on massacre of Christians and other minorities in Syria

Reports indicate more than 1,000 people have been killed in Syria over the past few days, 745 of whom were civilians, after clashes between loyalists of deposed president Bashar al-Assad and the country’s new Islamist rulers spiralled into revenge killings.

Graphic footage from inside Syria, seen by Sky News Australia, shows multiple dead bodies on the side of the road and outside burnt out buildings, some with blood spattered on nearby walls, and others lying face down in a row.

Credlin aired a censored version of the footage during her Sky News show on Tuesday, as well as excerpts of an interview a Syrian-Australian man had done with 4BC’s Gary Hardgraeves after having returned to the country to bury his mother.

“It's just a slaughter. It's absolute slaughter… Day after day, slaughtered every day - children, women, man, old people. It's just indiscriminate. It's just unbelievable,” the Brisbane man said.

“People can't even get out. If you do, you just - they stop you and they say, ‘What are you? Christian? You’re Alawite?

“And then the slaughter will happen.”

Credlin described the unedited footage and images sent to Sky News as “horrific”.

“Men, women, the elderly and children, all murdered in cold blood by Islamist terrorists, including the Hayat Tahir Al Sham - the HTS group (that currently rules the country) - which is designated as a terrorist organisation here in Australia,” she said.

Credlin said while she was no fan of President Assad, describing him as a “monster”, the latest scenes showed that “in some of these places, things can always get worse”.

“Maybe the new regime is actually complicit in religious killings; maybe it's turned a blind eye to them; or maybe it's just impotent – but it seems religious killings are taking place in post-Assad Syria on an industrial scale,” she said.

The Sky News host also questioned why some groups and organisations who had been so vocal on the conflict in Gaza appeared to be silent when Christians were killed at the hands of Muslims.

“There's any amount of media coverage of the devastation in Gaza, and fair enough too, although – it should be said – that's part of a war, against Hamas, the terrorist group that's pledged to the destruction of Israel, and that uses civilians as human shields,” she said.

 “But what about the slaughter of innocent people simply on the basis of religion as is happening to Gaza's north?

“Here is a reality check for all the Hamas apologists: Christians aren't killing anyone simply on the basis of their religion; Jews aren't killing anyone simply on the basis of their religion; but it seems that radical Muslims – some of them at least – are killing people simply on the basis of their religion, including other Muslims simply on the basis that they're the wrong brand of Islam.

“This is what happens when a religion, or at least too many of its adherents, believes quite literally in ‘death to the infidel’.”

Islam critic and dissident author Ayaan Hirsi Ali told Credlin she was not shocked by the violence in Syria because “one in seven Christians is subjected to persecution across Muslim majority countries”.

“It's happening in Syria, as you say now, but also in Iraq, in Nigeria, in Kyrgyzstan, in Kazakhstan,” she said.

“And another story that is not told before it gets to the slitting of throats, radical Muslims begin by vandalising churches. And an underreported story is the attacks on churches in France, in Britain, in Germany, Spain, Italy, Sweden.”

The Somali-born former refugee and former member of the Dutch parliament said Western leaders were silent because they were “afraid”.

“Our leadership are really afraid that some of the radical Muslims on our soil will start doing here in western countries what they're doing in Syria and Iraq and in Nigeria and other places,” Ms Ali said.

Asked about the silence of international human rights groups, Ms Ali said many of them had been “infiltrated by people who are beholden to the ideology of Islamism”.

“There was a human rights body of the United Nations, and it's led by Iran and by countries like… So the UN as an organization is a joke,” she said.

Syria’s interim government has claimed the latest violence broke out on Thursday when forces loyal to former President Assad launched a series of attacks killing 200 of their personnel.

The attacks spiralled into a cycle of revenge killings when thousands of armed supporters of Syria's new leaders from across the country descended to the coastal areas to support the beleaguered forces of the new administration.

In a national TV broadcast aired on Sunday, Syrian leader Ahmed Sharaa vowed to hunt down the perpetrators of violent clashes.

"We will hold accountable, with full decisiveness, anyone who is involved in the bloodshed of civilians, mistreats civilians, exceeds the state's authority or exploits power for personal gain. No one will be above the law," Mr Sharaa added in the video speech after earlier calling for national unity.

Mr Sharaa’s has attempted to present himself as a unifying leader since his HTS group led the charge in toppling the Assad regime in December, however the group – which was previously affiliated with al-Qaeda – is still listed as a terrorist organisation.

The commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces - a US-backed Kurdish group – has claimed factions "supported by Turkey and Islamic extremists" were chiefly responsible for the latest killings.

Turkey's defence ministry declined to respond to the remarks when contacted by Reuters.

Reporting done with Reuters.