Human rights violations during the Syrian civil war

Human rights violations during the Syrian civil war have been numerous and serious. In June 2012 Amnesty International reported the majority had been committed by government forces,^[1]:10 though the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has said that both sides appear to have committed war crimes, with UN investigations having concluded that the government's abuses are the greatest in both gravity and scale

Four of the international instruments ratified by Syria and which apply to the events described in the present report are particularly relevant: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the Convention on the Rights of the Child; and the UN Convention Against Torture. Syria is not a party to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, although it is bound by the provisions of the ICCPR that also prohibit enforced disappearances.^[4]:Four key security agencies have overseen the repression in Syria: the General Security Directorate, the Political Security Branch, the Military Intelligence Branch, and the Air Force Intelligence Branch. All three corps of the Syrian army have been deployed in a supporting role to the security forces; the civilian police have been involved in crowd control. The shabiha, led by the security forces, also participated in abuses.^[4]:8–10 Since Hafez al-Assad's rule, individuals from the Alawite minority have controlled (although they not always formally headed) these four agencies, as well as several elite military units,^[5]:72–3 and comprise the bulk of them.^[6]

According to the UN, Syrian armed and security forces have been responsible for: unlawful killing, including of children (mostly boys), medical personnel and hospital patients ("In some particularly grave instances, entire families were executed in their homes"); torture, including of children (mostly boys, sometimes to death) and hospital patients, and including sexual and psychological torture; arbitrary arrest "on a massive scale"; deployment of tanks and helicopter gunships in densely populated areas; heavy and indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas; collective punishment; enforced disappearances; widescale and systematic destruction and looting of property; the systematic denial, in some areas, of food and water; and the prevention of medical treatment, including to children.^{[4]:20–4[7]:4–6[8]:2–4[9]:10–20} Amnesty International reported that medical personnel had also been tortured,^[10] while the UN said that medical personnel in state hospitals were sometimes complicit in the killing and torture of patients.^[9]:11

 

The execution and torture of children was also documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.^{[1]:30[11]:31–2[12][13]} Most of the serious human rights violations documented by the UN have been committed by the Syrian army and security services as part of military or search operations.^[7]:4[8]:1 The pattern of the killing, coupled with interviews with defectors, led the UN to conclude a shoot-to-kill policy was operative.^[4]:20[9]:10 The UN mentioned several reports of security forces killing injured victims by putting them into refrigerated cells in hospital morgues.^[4]:22Amnesty International decided to enter the country uninvited in spring 2012 and documented "gross violations of human rights on a massive scale" by the Syrian military and shabiha, "many of which amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes".

 

These were committed against the armed opposition, to punish and intimidate civilian individuals and strongholds perceived to be supporting the opposition, and indiscriminately against individuals who had nothing to do with the opposition. In addition to the crimes listed by the UN above, they noted cases of people being burnt alive; destruction of pharmacies and field hospitals (normal hospitals are out of bounds to those wounded by the military); and that the sometimes lethal torture ("broken bones, missing teeth, deep scars and open wounds from electric shocks, and from severe beatings and lashings with electric cables and other implements") was overwhelmingly directed at men and boys.^[1]:7–10

 

The UN reported 10,000 persons arbitrarily detained between mid-March and the late June 2011;^[7]:5 a year later that number had more than doubled, though the true number of detainees may have been far higher.^{[1]:11[11]:12} At the notorious Seidnaya jail, north of Damascus, 2,500 military officers and lesser ranks were being held after they disobeyed orders or attempted desertion.^[14] Human Rights Watch documented more than 20 different methods of torture used against detainees, including: prolonged and severe beatings, often with objects such as batons and wires; painful stress positions; electrocution; burning with car battery acid; sexual assault; pulling out fingernails; mock execution; and sexual violence.^[11]:18–19 Many were held in disgusting and cruelly overcrowded conditions; many who needed medical assistance were denied it, and some consequently died.^[11]:14–17

 

Amnesty was also in the possession of 10,000 names, mainly men and boys, who had been killed since February 2011, though the organisation again conceded the true figure may be significantly higher.^[1]:11 Some of the more prominent detainees have included Ali al-Abdallah,^[15] blogger and student Tal al-Mallohi,^[16] and prominent LGBT anti-government blogger Razan Ghazzawi, who was arrested twice by Syrian authorities. Human Rights Watch accused the government and Shabiha of using civilians as human shields when they advanced on opposition-held areas.^[17] A UN report confirmed this, saying soldiers had used children as young as eight, detaining and killing children afterwards. The UN added the Syrian Government as one of the worst offenders on its annual "list of shame".^[18]

 

In response to these violations, the UN Human Rights Council passed a condemnatory resolution. It also demanded that Syria cooperate with a UN investigation into the abuses, release all political prisoners, and allow independent monitors to visit detention facilities.^[19]Not all reports have proved accurate: Zainab al-Hosni, who was purportedly beheaded by Syrian authorities, later turned out to be alive.^[20]In May 2012, Al Arabiya aired leaked footage of a man being tortured in a government detention centre in Kafranbel.^[21]

 

An increasing number of reports indicated that the Syrian government is attacking civilians at bread bakeries with artillery rounds and rockets in opposition-controlled cities and districts in Aleppo province and Aleppo city, with the reports indicating that the bakeries were shelled indiscriminately.^[22][23] HRW said these are war crimes, as the only military targets in the areas were rebels manning the bakeries and that dozens of civilians were killed.^[24]Upon retaking the capital Damascus after the Battle of Damascus (2012), the Syrian government began a campaign of collective punishment against Sunni suburbs in-and-around the capital which had supported FSA presence in their neighborhoods.^[25][26]

The charity Save the Children conducted interviews in refugee camps with Syrian civilians who had fled the fighting, and released a report in September 2012 containing many accounts of detention, torture and summary execution, as well as other incidents such as the use of civilians as human shields, allegedly including tying children onto advancing tanks so that rebel forces would not fire upon them.^[27]In a 23 October 2012 statement, Human Rights Watch said that Syrian military denials notwithstanding, HRW had "evidence of ongoing cluster bomb attacks" by Syria’s air force. HRW has confirmed reports "through interviews with victims, other residents and activists who filmed the cluster munitions", as well as "analysis of 64 videos and also photos showing weapon remnants" of cluster bomb strikes.^[28] The use, production, stockpiling, and transfer of cluster munitions is porhibited by the 2008 international Convention on Cluster Munitions treaty. Use of cluster bombs have been considered a grave threat to civilian populations because of the bombs' ability to randomly scatter thousands of submunitions or "bomblets" over a vast area, many of which remain waiting to explode, taking civilian lives and limbs long after the conflict is over.^[29]

United Nations High Commissioner for Human RightsNavi Pillay and others have called for Syria to be referred to the International Criminal Court; however, it would be difficult for this to take place with within the foreseeable future because Syria is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, meaning the ICC has no jurisdiction there (referral could alternatively happen via the Security Council, but Russia and China would block).^[30]Marc Lynch, who is in favour of a referral, noted a couple of other routes to the ICC were possible, and that overcoming Chinese and Russian opposition was not impossible.^[31]

 

Richard Haass has argued that one way to encourage top-level defections is to "threaten war-crimes indictments by a certain date, say, August 15, for any senior official who remains a part of the government and is associated with its campaign against the Syrian people. Naming these individuals would concentrate minds in Damascus."^[32] Nevertheless, it remains unlikely in the short term, and some would argue this is a blessing in disguise, since this precludes the ICC's involvement while the conflict is still raging, a development that would arguably only increase the Assad government's violent obstinacy.^[33]

With regard to armed opposition groups, the UN accused them of: unlawful killing; torture and ill-treatment; kidnapping and hostage taking; and the use of children in dangerous non-combat roles.^[8]:4–5 Amnesty confirmed that they were guilty of having tortured and executed captured soldiers and militiamen, as well as known or perceived civilian collaborators,^[1]:10 and later condemned the opposition fighters responsible for an attack on a pro-Assad TV station in June 2012 in which media workers were killed.^[34] According to the Institute for the Study of War, "[m]onthly instances of assassinations,executions, and kidnappings by rebels skyrocketed in February 2012 and doubled again between March and April. . . .

 

The Assad regime's sectarian shabiha paramilitaries have been responsible for a vast numbers of killings, which has made it more difficult for insurgents to resist the urge to act in reprisal."^[35] Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN special representative for children and armed conflict, said in March 2012 that she had received claims that the Free Syrian Army was using children as fighters.^[13] A UN report in April 2012 also mentioned "credible allegations" that rebels, including the FSA, were using child fighters, despite stated FSA policy of not recruiting any child under the age of 17,^[36]:23 but a later one in June 2012 made no mention of this, only reporting that opposition fighters were using children in non-combat roles.^[8]:5 Still, in an interview to AP, one rebel commander stated that his 16-year-old son had died in clashes with government troops as a rebel fighter. He also confirmed that his group had been releasing prisoners in bomb-rigged cars turning drivers into unwitting suicide bombers.^[37]

 

In May 2013, a video was posted on the internet showing rebel commander Abu Sakkar cutting organs from the dead body of a Syrian soldier and putting one of them in his mouth, "as if he is taking a bite out of it". He says to the camera: "soldiers of Bashar [...] we will eat your heart and livers! [...] Oh my heroes of Baba Amr, you slaughter the Alawites and take their hearts out to eat them!" Human Rights Watch confirmed the authenticity of the footage, and said that Abu Sakkar appears to be a commander of the "Independent Omar al-Farouq Brigade". Human Rights Watch said "It is not known whether the Independent Omar al-Farouq Brigade operates within the command structure of the Free Syrian Army".

 

The incident was condemned by the FSA's Chief of Staff and the Syrian National Coalition said that the commander would be put on trial.^[38][39] The rebel Supreme Military Council called for Abu Sakkar's arrest, saying it wants him "dead or alive". Abu Sakkar said that his action was revenge, explaining that he had found a video on the soldier's cellphone in which the soldier sexually abuses a woman and her two daughters.^[40] In earlier days before the escalation of violence he had taken part in marches and at that time voiced the need for a united front to cause the reforms that were denied by the regime.

 

His brigade was not among those calling for a medieval caliphate or allegiance to al-Qa'ida, and he had taken a stand against Islamist extremists in rebel ranks. Independent journalist Kim Sengupta, having observed that the brutality with which the regime responded to peaceful protests in Baba Amr and elsewhere in Syria was the catalyst for the armed uprising which followed, looked for further explanation for the viciousness that is expressed. Mr Nassr, another brigade member told him; "He (Abu Sakkar) should not have done what he did, doing that was haram (wrong in religion) and unwise. But it was a message to the Shabiha. They film young men and women being tortured to try and frighten the people and this was meant as a warning to them.” ^[41]

Men and women have been subjected to sexual violence by government forces. Amnesty International has received reports of men being raped.^[42] According to the UN, sexual violence in detention is directed principally against men and boys,^[9]:17 rather than women and girls:

Human Rights Watch has also reported these sexual crimes being committed by Syrian government forces.^{[11]:26–8, 32–4}Syrian activists claim women were abducted and raped in rebellious parts of the country, possibly using sexual violence as a means of quelling dissent. An opposition campaigner supplied The Globe and Mail with details about six previously unknown cases of violence against women, saying that more such incidents remain hidden as Damascus struggles to contain the uprising.^[43] Syrian refugees fleeing to Turkey reported mass rape by Syrian soldiers, more than 400 women were raped and sexually abused.^[44]

 

On 13 August 2012 a sergeant in the special forces who had defected claimed that Alawite officers ordered the rape of teenage girls in Homs, who would be shot afterwards. The defected sergeant further said that soldiers who refused were shot by the army^[45]

A report released 14 January 2013 by the International Rescue Committee stated that a primary reason Syrian refugees flee is because of fear of rape.^[46]

 

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 13 journalists were killed in work-related incidents during the first eighteen months of the uprising.^[50] During the same period, Reporters Without Borders said a total of 33 journalists were killed.^[51] Many, such as Marie Colvin, were killed by government forces,^[52] but at least one, French journalist Gilles Jacquier, was killed by rebel fire.^[53.^[2][3]