Syrian military and pro-government forces known as shabiha have arbitrarily detained female opposition activists as well as female relatives and neighbors of pro-opposition activists and fighters, and in a number of cases, subjected them to torture and sexual abuse, Human Rights Watch said today.

The Syrian government has interrogated students and carried out violent assaults on their protests and military attacks on schools. An interactive map shows the destruction of schools across the country.

Human Rights Watch has reviewed graphic evidence that appears to show a commander of the Syrian opposition “Independent Omar al-Farouq” brigade mutilating the corpse of a pro-government fighter. The figure in the video cuts the heart and liver out of the body and uses sectarian language to insult Alawites. The same brigade was implicated in April 2013 in the cross-border indiscriminate shelling of the Lebanese Shi’a villages of al-Qasr and Hawsh al-Sayyed

New Syrian government air and missile strikes are causing high civilian casualties in opposition-controlled areas of Aleppo in violation of the laws of war. A Human Rights Watch team in northern Aleppo province has investigated recent attacks that killed scores of civilians and destroyed dozens of civilian homes without damaging any apparent opposition military targets.

The Syrian Air Force has repeatedly carried out indiscriminate, and in some cases deliberate, air strikes against civilians. These attacks are serious violations of international humanitarian law (the laws of war), and people who commit such violations with criminal intent are responsible for war crimes.

Jordan is routinely and unlawfully rejecting Palestinian refugees, single males, and undocumented people seeking asylum at its border with Syria, said Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic (the Harvard Clinic).

The Syrian government launched at least four ballistic missiles that struck populated areas in the city of Aleppo and a town in Aleppo governorate during the week of February 17, 2013, Human Rights Watch said today. The attacks killed more than 141 people, including 71 children, and caused immense physical destruction.

A peaceful activist who had been helping local committees deliver aid died in detention in Syria on February 16, 2013. A second detainee died in detention in November, a released detainee recently told his family. The reported deaths highlight the urgent need for the UN Security Council to require the authorities in Syria to grant international monitors immediate and unhindered access to all detention facilities.

Armed opposition groups appeared to have deliberately destroyed religious sites in mixed areas of Northern Syria, in November and December 2012.An armed opposition group destroyed a Shia place of worship in Idlib governorate, and two Christian churches in Latakia governorate were looted.

A letter sent to the United Nations Security Council on behalf of 57 states calling for a referral of the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC) gives momentum to international efforts to stop grave abuses committed there. More countries should join the call and impress on reluctant Council members the urgency of taking up the issue of accountability.