War crimes in the Syrian civil war

Human rights violations during the Syrian Uprising have been numerous and serious. The vast majority have been committed by government forces, though Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has said that both sides appear to have committed war crimes.

Legal framework

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.

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. 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, and comprise the bulk of them.

Syrian armed and security forces

The "vast majority" of human rights violations, including international crimes, documented have been committed by the Syrian armed and security forces and their allied militia. Some violations are so serious, deliberate and systematic as to constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes. Human Rights Watch accused the Assad government of creating an "archipelago of torture centers". The key role in the repression, and particularly torture, is played by the mukhabarat: the Department of Military Intelligence, the Political Security Directorate, the General Intelligence Directorate, and the Air Force Intelligence Directorate.

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. Amnesty International reported that medical personnel had also been tortured, while the UN said that medical personnel in state hospitals were sometimes complicit in the killing and torture of patients. The execution and torture of children was also documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. 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. The pattern of the killing, coupled with interviews with defectors, led the UN to conclude a shoot-to-kill policy was operative. The UN mentioned several reports of security forces killing injured victims by putting them into refrigerated cells in hospital morgues.

Amnesty 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.

The UN reported 10,000 persons arbitrarily detained between mid-March and the late June 2011; a year later that number had more than doubled, though the true number of detainees may have been far higher. 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. Many were held in disgusting and cruelly overcrowded conditions; many who needed medical assistance were denied it, and some consequently died.

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. Some of the more prominent detainees have included Ali al-Abdallah, blogger and student Tal al-Mallohi, 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. 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".

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.

Not all reports have proved accurate: Zainab al-Hosni, who was purportedly beheaded by Syrian authorities, later turned out to be alive. In May 2012, Al Arabiya aired leaked footage of a man being tortured in a government detention centre in Kafranbel.

Referral to the International Criminal Court

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi 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). 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. 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.

Opposition fighters

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. Amnesty confirmed that they were guilty of having tortured and executed captured soldiers and militiamen, as well as known or perceived civilian collaborators, 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. 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." 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. 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, but a later one in June 2012 made no mention of this, only reporting that opposition fighters were using children in non-combat roles. 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.

Sexual violence

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

Several testimonies reported the practice of sexual torture used on male detainees. Men were routinely made to undress and remain naked. Several former detainees testified reported beatings of genitals, forced oral sex, electroshocks and cigarette burns to the anus in detention facilities . . . Several of the detainees were repeatedly threatened that they would be raped in front of their family and that their wives and daughters would also be raped. Testimonies were received from several men who stated they had been anally raped with batons and that they had witnessed the rape of boys. One man stated that he witnessed a 15-year-old boy being raped in front of his father. A 40-year-old man saw the rape of an 11-year-old boy by three security services officers.

Human Rights Watch has also reported these sexual crimes being committed by Syrian government forces.

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. Syrian refugees fleeing to Turkey reported mass rape by Syrian soldiers, but there were other reports that in the Turkish refugee camp, more than 400 women were raped and sexually abused. Mass rape by forces loyal to the Assad government—such as 36 women being assaulted by security forces in northern villages, 25 girls in Homs, and 20 individual cases of rape throughout Syria—has also been alleged. Lauren Wolfe, the Director of the organization Women Under Siege, has suggested such attacks are underreported.

Attacks on journalists

Except for those hand-picked by the government, journalists have been banned from reporting in Syria. Those who have entered the country regardless have been targeted. Within a month of the protests taking off, at least seven local and international journalists were detained, and at least one of these was beaten. Citizen journalist Mohammed Hairiri was arrested in April 2012, tortured in prison, and sentenced to death in May 2012 for giving an interview for Al Jazeera. Jordanian Salameh Kaileh was tortured and detained in deplorable conditions before being deported.