Human rights in Syria
Member State of the Arab League |
---|
The situation for human rights in
Since the
There is no
After an initial period of
History of human rights
French rule (1920–1946)
During the Great Revolt, French military forces sieged much of Damascus and the countryside,[38] killing at least 7,000 rebels and displacing over 100,000 civilians. Authorities would publicly display mutilated corpses in central squares within Damascus and villages throughout Syria as a means of intimidating opponents of the government.[39] In 1926, the Damascus military court executed 355 Syrians without any legal representation.[40] Hundreds of Syrians were sentenced to death in absentia, prison terms of various lengths, and life imprisonment with hard labour.
Additionally, it was during this period that Syrian Women's Rights groups began to assert themselves, led by individuals like
Post–1948
Ba'athist Era: 1963-Present
The
In March 1964, Jews were banned from traveling more than 5 kilometres (3 mi) from their hometowns.
After purging rival Baathist factions through a
In 1982, Hafez al-Assad responded to an insurrection led by the Muslim Brotherhood in the city of Hama by sending a paramilitary force that indiscriminately killed between 10,000 and 55,000 civilians including children, women, and the elderly during the Hama massacre.[48][49] State-violence perpetrated by Assad's reign have targeted women extensively, subjecting them to discrimination and gender-based violence.[3] Between 1980 and 2000, more than 17,000 Syrian civilians were subjected to forced disappearance from the Syrian regime. During Baathist occupation of Lebanon, numerous Lebanese, Palestinian and other Arab civilians went missing. More than 35 torture techniques were reported to be employed in Syrian prisons and military detention centres during this time.[50] A 1983 report published by Amnesty International revealed that Assad regime routinely committed mass-executions of alleged dissidents and engaged in the extensive torture of prisoners of conscience. Various torture methods in Syrian prisons include electrocutions, ablazing, sexual violence, castration, etc.[51]
In 2000, Bashar al-Assad inherited the
According to the 2008 report on
In 2009 Syria was included in Freedom House's "Worst of the Worst" section and given a rating of 7 for Political Rights: and 6 for Civil Liberties.[60] According to Human Rights Watch, as of 2009 Syria's poor human rights situation had "deteriorated further". Authorities arrested political and human rights activists, censored websites, detained bloggers, and imposed travel bans. Syria's multiple security agencies continue to detain people without arrest warrants. No political parties were licensed and emergency rule, imposed in 1963, remained in effect.[2] Various torture techniques deployed in Syrian detention centres and prisons include routine beatings, rapes, sexual violence, "Bisat al-rih" (flying carpet), etc.[61]
The scale of the brutal violence and
In April 2017, the U.S. Navy carried out a
Judicial process
Syria has a long history of
On 18 September 2020, Netherlands demanded that the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad be held accountable for the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the civilian war. The Dutch officials sent a notice to the Syrian regime on the legal actions to be taken and submitted a case at the International Court of Justice on the Syrian government's failure to negotiate under the UN framework.[66]
Prisoners of conscience
Among the scores of prisoners of conscience arrested in 2009, and hundreds of political prisoners already in prison, some of the more prominent prisoners were:
- Kamal al-Labwani, a prisoner of conscience who had three years added to his 12-year sentence for allegedly "broadcasting false or exaggerated news which could affect the morale of the country", on account of remarks he was alleged to have made in his prison cell.[3]
- Nabil Khlioui, an alleged Islamist from Deir al-Zour, who with at least 10 other Islamists, most are presumed to be from Deir al-Zour, remained in incommunicado detention without charge or trial at the end of 2009.[3]
- Mashaal Tammo, the killed spokesperson for the unauthorized Kurdish Future Current group, who was 'held incommunicado for 12 days and charged with "aiming to provoke civil war or sectarian fighting", "conspiracy" and three other charges commonly brought against Kurdish activists, charges that could lead to the death penalty.[citation needed]
- Twelve leaders of a prominent gathering of opposition groups, the Damascus Declaration, continue to serve 30-month prison terms. Among those detained is Riad Seif, 62, a former member of parliament who is in poor health.[2]
- Habib Saleh was sentenced to three years in jail for "spreading false information" and "weakening national sentiment" in the form of writing articles criticizing the government and defending opposition figure Riad al-Turk.[2]
That night, Hamada woke up needing to use the bathroom. A guard hit him all the way to the toilets, but he went in alone. When he opened the first stall, he saw a pile of corpses, battered and blue. He found two more in the second stall, emaciated and missing their eyes. There was another body by the sink. Hamada came out in panic, but the guard sent him back in and told him, "Pee on top of the bodies." He couldn't. He started to feel that he was losing his grip on reality. According to the U.N. inquiry, dead detainees were "kept in the toilets" at multiple security branches in Damascus.
— Description of mass-killings and torture of inmates in Hospital 606, a Syrian military hospital near Mezzeh[67]
- One released prisoner was Aref Dalila. He had served seven of the ten years in his prison sentence, much of it in solitary confinement and in increasingly poor health, for his involvement in the so-called "Damascus Spring" before being released by a presidential pardon.[3]
- In June 2010, Mohannad al-Hassani, head of the Syrian Organisation for Human Rights (Swasiya) and winner of the 2010 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, was convicted of "weakening national morale" and "conveying within Syria false news that could debilitate the morale of the nation." He was sentenced to three years in prison.[68]
In a 2006 report, Human Rights Watch reported on the continued detention of "thousands" of political prisoners in Syria, "many of them members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood and the Communist Party." According to the Syrian Human Rights Committee that there were 4,000 political prisoners held in Syrian jails in 2006.[69]
Torture
August 2016, Amnesty International released a report tackling the issue of torture and ill-treatment in Syrian government prisons which amount to crimes against humanity. Since the crisis began in March 2011, the international organization estimated that 17,723 people have died in custody in Syria – an average rate of more than 300 deaths each month. According to the report, governmental forces have used torture to scare the opponents. But today, they use it as a part of systematic attack against opposition members. According to testimonies of some survivors, detainees were subjected to numerous kind of torture aiming at dehumanizing them, and in many cases killing them. Amnesty international said that those, who are responsible for these atrocities, must be brought to justice.[72]
In
Chilling revelations of
Freedom of religion
The Constitution provides for
Women's rights and LGBT rights
The
Article 520 of the penal code of 1949, prohibits having homosexual relations, i.e. "carnal relations against the order of nature", and provides for up to three-years imprisonment.[94]
In 2010 the
Freedom of movement
This section needs additional citations for verification. (December 2020) |
Syrians can not leave the country without an "exit visa" granted by the authorities.[48][99] Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides for the human right of Freedom of Movement as such "(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and return to his country."[100] Bans have been said to have increased significantly since 2006, though exact statistics are hard to come by as secret security agencies are commonly the ones issuing the bans. The Syrian Constitution, in Article 38(3), allows freedom of movement "within the territories of the state unless restricted by a judicial decision or by the implementation of laws of public health and safety."[101]
After winning the 2007 presidential election in Syria with 99.82% of the declared votes, Bashar al-Assad implemented numerous measures that further intensified political and cultural repression in Syria.[102] Assad government expanded travel bans against numerous dissidents, intellectuals, authors and artists living in Syria; preventing them and their families from travelling abroad. In 2010, The Economist newspaper described Syrian government as "the worst offender among Arab states", that engaged in imposing travel bans and restricted free movement of people. More than 400 individuals in Syria were restricted by Assad regime's travel bans in 2010.[103] During this period, the Assad government arrested numerous journalists and shut down independent press centres, in addition to tightening its censorship of the Internet.[104]
From 2011 to 2015, the last four years of the Syrian war, the freedom of movement has been most widely restricted in certain areas and on certain individuals.[citation needed] Restrictions vary between regions, partly because of continuous fighting in certain areas.[citation needed] In rebel held areas there are severe restrictions on the movement of government supporters (or people thought to be government supporters).[citation needed] Foreign diplomats are unable to visit a majority of Syria, and are often not allowed outside of Damascus (Syrian capital).[citation needed]
In the areas of Jindires in Afrin, and Ras al Ayn, curfews were executed in 2012 and 2013 as rebel groups put in place a curfew of 5 pm, after which nobody could be seen in public. Then in December 2014, a travel ban was announced on Syrian men aged 18 to 42 (military age). The memorandum supposedly states that all Syrian males must have special permission to leave the country, obtained from army officials.[105]
An example of an individual travel ban is Louay Hussein, president of an opposition group in Syria (Building the Syrian State, or the BSS party), was unable to attend peace talks in Moscow in April 2015 because the government refused to rid of his lifelong travel ban, however on 26 April 2015 Hussein managed to evade his ban and flee to Spain.[106] Also Syrian human rights defenders are having their movement restrained by being held in arbitrary arrest. The human rights defenders Mazen Darwish, Hani Al-Zitani, and Hussein Gharir were arrested in February 2012 for 'publicizing terrorist acts'. The United Nations General Assembly has repeatedly called for their release.[107]
Al-Furat University in the city of Deir ez-Zor has been facing movement restrictions by ISIS recently. In January 2015 circulars were issued to ISIS checkpoints in the area to scrutinize all university students passing. To encourage students to abandon their studies and join the ranks of ISIS, the rebels have been restricting the students from traveling between government areas and ISIS-held areas, preventing many students from entering or exiting the university grounds.[108]
Further from this, there are certain restrictions on movement placed on Women, for example, Syrian law now allows males to place restrictions on certain female relatives. Women over the age of 18 are entitled to travel outside of Syria, however, a woman's husband may file a request for his wife to be banned from leaving the country. From July 2013, in certain villages in Syria (namely Mosul, Raqqu and Deir el-Zour), ISIS no longer allow women to appear in public alone, they must be accompanied by a male relative/guardian known as a mahram.[109] Security checkpoints in civilian areas set up by the government and by ISIS have allowed them to monitor these restrictions.[citation needed] With the males of Syria often being involved in the fighting, no matter which side, this is leaving many Syrian women at home alone with the children, stranded and unable to leave to purchase food and supplies.[citation needed] Further, women in Tel Abyad and Idlib city have been banned from driving by ISIS and Jabhat al-Nursa.[citation needed]
Other countries have begun closing their borders to
The Syrian government continues its practice of issuing exit visas with strict requirements.[citation needed] They have also closed the Damascus airport frequently because of growing violence.[citation needed] Bans on travel are frequently used against human rights activists and their associates, often these people would not learn about their travel ban until they were prevented leaving the country.[citation needed] Usually no explanations are given for these travel restrictions.[citation needed] The government often bans members of the opposition and their families from traveling abroad, and they are targeted if they attempt to, causing opposition families to fear to attempt to leave Syria for fear of being attacked at the airport or border crossing.[citation needed] Though this action is illegal under international law, Syrian courts have been known to decline to interfere in matters of national security.[citation needed]
Article 38(1) provides that "no citizen may be deported from the country, or prevented from returning to it".[101] This, along with Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights creates a general legal right to travel internationally. As well as preventing citizens from leaving Syria, there have also been many instances of citizens being prevented from returning to Syria, whether they left illegally or not. A positive step in regards to this was taken on 28 April 2015, when it was announced by Syrian authorities that citizens who had previously fled the war would be able to re-attain passports without a review by the intelligence service, or going through the Department of emigration and passports. These citizens had fled the country illegally and either not taken their passports, or lost them.[111]
Freedom of speech and the media
The number of news media has increased in the past decade, but the Ba'ath Party continues to maintain control of the press.[114] Journalists and bloggers have been arrested and tried.[14] In 2009, the Committee to Protect Journalists named Syria number three in a list of the ten worst countries in which to be a blogger, given the arrests, harassment, and restrictions which online writers in Syria faced.[115]
In addition to filtering a wide range of Web content, the Syrian government monitors Internet use very closely and has detained citizens "for expressing their opinions or reporting information online." Vague and broadly worded laws invite government abuse and have prompted Internet users to engage in self-censorship to avoid the state's ambiguous grounds for arrest.[118][120]
The Syrian Centre for Media and Free Expression was closed by the government in September 2009. It was the country's only NGO specializing in media issues, Internet access, and media monitoring during election campaigns. It had operated without government approval, and had monitored violations of journalists' rights and had taken up the cause of the ban on the dissemination of many newspapers and magazines.[114]
Syrian security forces arrested and beat up protestors on 15 June 2020. The protest started on 7 June 2020, in front of the governorate center against government's failure of handling economic downfall, deteriorating living conditions and corruption. HRW appealed the Syrian authority to release the peacefully protesting detainees.[121] Even pro-regime loyalist journalists who are allowed to report within the country are arrested by security forces over social media posts or ambiguos charges like being "out of line".[122]
Mass surveillance
Ba'athist government has been ruling Syria as a totalitarian
Ba'athist secret police consists of four wings:
The general intelligence, political security, and military intelligence divisions of the Ba'athist secret police have several branches in all governorates controlled by the Assad regime, with headquarters in Damascus. With state impunity granted by the Assad government, Mukhabarat officers wield pervasive influence over local bodies, civil associations, and bureaucracy, playing a major role in shaping Ba'athist administrative decisions. Additionally, intense factional rivalries and power struggles exist among various branches of the secret police.[130] Several academics have described the military, bureaucratic, and secret police apparatus of the Ba'athist state as constituting a pyramidal socio-political structure with an Orwellian surveillance system designed to neutralize independent civic activities and political dissent from its very onset.[131][132]
Syria is one of the five countries on Reporters Without Borders organization's March 2013 list of "State Enemies of the Internet", countries ruled by governments that perpetrate pervasive surveillance of news providers, resulting in harsh restrictions on access to information and personal lives. Assad government has intensified its web censorship and cyber-monitoring during the course of the Syrian civil war. Assad government's cyberforces engage in several social engineering techniques and surveillance measures such as phishing, malware attacks, interception of Skype calls, etc.[133]
Syrian civil war
During the Syrian civil war, a UN report described actions by the security forces as being "gross violations of human rights".[134] The UN report documented shooting recruits that refused to fire into peaceful crowds without warning, brutal interrogations including elements of sexual abuse of men and gang rape of young boys, staking out hospitals when wounded sought assistance, and shooting of children as young as two.[135] In 2011, Human Rights Watch stated that Syria's bleak human rights record stood out in the region. While Human Rights Watch doesn't rank offenders, many have characterized Syria's human rights report as among the worst in the world in 2010.[16]
As early as his public speech delivered on 30 March 2011, Assad had declared his intention to wipe out the protests with as much brute force as possible. He labelled the protests as an anti-Syrian conspiracy to foment "Fitna" and doubled down on his anti-
As the revolution spread across all the provinces in Syria, the Crisis Management Cell decided to intensify the repression by unleashing more violence and co-ordinate the security response, in a Ba'ath Party meeting. The key aspects of the new crackdown strategy included:[67]
- Secret police and armed forces were ordered to initiate large-scale incursions into the houses of protest planners and independent journalists
- "once each sector has been cleansed of wanted people", Ba'athist paramilitaries were to occupy these areas under protection of Syrian militaryand prevent survivors from returning to their homes
- Formation of "joint investigation committees" headed by leaders of the Baathist security departments across all provinces to incarcerate suspected activists and cross-examining them in prisons
- Transfer of the findings across all security branches for pinpointing of additional suspects
- The commands were passed down to the provincial leaders of the party who were instructed to swiftly execute the orders in their respective regions
We have murder, we have extermination, we have
Nazisdidn't actually take individual pictures of each of their victims with identifying information on them.
— Lawyer Stephen Rapp, Chairman of Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), on Assad regime's war-crimes[136]
While
On 2 March 2018,
Detention Centers
Detention Centers run by the Assad government have been one of the most glaring human rights abuses in Syria. In 2014,
In 2017 details emerged about Sednaya Prison, a military prison near Damascus operated by the Assad government. The prison has been used to hold thousands of prisoners, both civilian and government opposition. Amnesty International estimated that between 5,000 and 13,000 people were extrajudicially executed at the one prison between September 2011 and December 2015.[144] Survivor accounts from state-run prisons describe inhumane conditions, starvation, psychological trauma, and torture.[145]
Women have also faced human rights abuses and war crimes inside Assad prisons. A 2017 report by Lawyers and Doctors for Human Rights (LDHR)
On 23 April 2020, two ex-Syrian secret police officers, Anwar R. and Eyad A., accused of committing
Forced Disappearances
Since the start of the civil war in 2011, more than 100,000 people have been detained, forcibly disappeared or went missing in Syria as of 2019. At least 90,000 of them are thought to have been detained or forcibly disappeared in Syria's state prisons. Other reports estimate that more than 128,000 civilians have been kidnapped or forcibly disappeared by the regime forces by 2019.
In June 2023,
Human rights in ISIL-controlled territory
The state of human rights in territories controlled by the
Human rights in the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria
Human rights violations against Kurds included depriving ethnic Kurdish citizens of their citizenship; suppressing Kurdish language and culture; discrimination against citizens based on Kurdish ethnicity; confiscation of Kurdish land and settlement by Arabs.
In a report "'We Had Nowhere Else to Go': Forced Displacement and Demolition in Northern Syria", Amnesty International documented allegations of forced evictions of Arabs, Turkmens and Kurds and the destruction of their homes. According to Amnesty International, YPG accused them of having links with ISIL and other Islamist groupa. The report said that "in some cases, entire villages have been demolished", and that villagers were "ordered to leave at gunpoint, their livestock shot at". Some persons claimed to Amnesty that "they told us we had to leave or they would tell the US coalition that we were terrorists and their planes would hit us and our families. Threats by the YPG of calling in US airstrikes against villagers were reported. Amnesty International claimed that "these instances of forced displacement constitute war crimes".
In October 2015, Amnesty International reported that the YPG had driven civilians from northern Syria and destroyed their homes in retaliation for perceived links to ISIL. The majority of the destroyed homes belonged to Arabs, but some belonged to Turkmens and Kurds.[169] Turkish "Daily Sabah" claimed that Amnesty International has said that Kurdish PYD conducted ethnic cleansing against Turkmens and Arabs after seizing Tal Abyad.[170] However, Amnesty International has published only one report about the Syrian Kurdish forces and it is related to destroying villages and homes, not ethnic cleansing at all.[171] The Amnesty International report concluded that there are documented cases of forced displacement that constitute war crimes.[172] In 2015, Assyrian and Armenian organizations protested the enforcement of Kurdish self-administration in the Hasaka province, including expropriation of private property by the PYD and interference in church school curricula and also criticized illegal seizure of property, and targeted killings[173][174][175] Assyrians have also criticized the enforcement of revisionist curricula in private and public schools with a Kurdish-nationalist bias. They have claimed that in textbooks the Kurds "alter historical and geographical facts", including Assyrian place names which are changed to Kurdish names, and students are taught that King Nebuchadnezzar from the Old Testament married a Kurdish woman.[176][177] Of particular concern are the "harassment and arbitrary arrests of the PYD's Kurdish political rivals" and of civil society leaders noted by human rights organizations.[178] The Y.P.G. is accused of having arrested hundreds of political prisoners. It is claimed that about 150 people were abducted by the Y.P.G. in 2013 alone. Human Rights Watch reported in 2014 that "there have been numerous cases of maltreatment in prisons in Rojava". Some dissidents were tortured and killed[179] Amnesty International reported in 2015 that the PYD "is using a crackdown against terrorism...as a pretext to unlawfully detain and unfairly try peaceful critics and civilians."[180][181][182] The PYD has also shot demonstrators, arrested political opponents, and shut down media outlets.[183][184][185] Ethnic tensions between Kurds and Arabs have been at the forefront of the conflicts in Syria and Iraq. In Syria, there are widespread reports of Kurdish abuses against Arab civilians,[183] including arbitrary arrests, forced displacement,[186] and reports of YPG forces razing villages.[187] Similar reports of Kurdish forces destroying Arab homes have emerged in the fight for Mosul.[188][185]
See also
- Al-Marsad
- Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act
- Human rights in Islamic countries
- Human rights in the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria
- Human rights in the Middle East
- Human trafficking in Syria
- Syrian Civil War
- Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
- Wissam Tarif
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Notes
External links
- Syria at Human Rights Watch
- Syria Charter of Rights and Freedoms Is a proposed modern system of human rights for adoption prior to a new Syrian constitution.
- 2010 Human Rights Report: Syria, U.S. Department of State, 8 April 2011
- "Syria rights activist jailed for five years". Middle East Online. April 24, 2007. Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved April 26, 2007.
- Uprising against the Assad Regime in Syria: Is This a Second Libya? June 2011, Qantara.de
- Worrall, James; Hightower, Victoria Penziner (2021). "Methods in the madness? Exploring the logics of torture in Syrian counterinsurgency practices". British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. 49 (3): 418–432. S2CID 234872905.