• Human Rights in Syria

    Syria responded to months of peaceful protests with brutal force involving indiscriminate air and artillery assaults on residential areas and apparent targeting of civilians, and torture, which constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, pushing the political confrontation into an internal armed conflict. The opposition is increasingly conducting offensive operations. Some opposition forces have carried out serious abuses like kidnapping, torture, and what appear to be extrajudicial executions. The spread and intensification of fighting have led to a dire humanitarian situation with hundreds of thousands internally displaced or seeking refuge in neighboring countries.

  • Local residents and activists setting up a grid in the Aleppo river to catch bodies floating down the river.
    © Private
    Syria: A Stream of Bodies in Aleppo’s River
    At least 147 people whose bodies were found in the city of Aleppo’s river between January and March, 2013, were probably executed in government-controlled areas.
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Reports

  • Safe No More
    Students and Schools under Attack in Syria
  • Death from the Skies
    Deliberate and Indiscriminate Air Strikes on Civilians
  • Torture Archipelago
    Arbitrary Arrests, Torture, and Enforced Disappearances in Syria’s Underground Prisons since March 2011
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Syria

  • Syria: Attacks on Schools Endanger Students
    Jun 5, 2013
    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.
  • UN Human Rights Council: Interactive Dialogue with the Commission of Inquiry on Syria
    Jun 4, 2013
    Human Rights Watch is deeply concerned by the escalating level of violence in Syria.In particular, we express grave concern for the safety of the remaining civilian population in al-Qusayr as well as wounded and captured fighters on all sides. Local opposition activists told Human Rights Watch that recent government attacks on fleeing civilians, including a reported attack on May 31, have made it difficult to escape and put remaining civilians, including many wounded, at great risk.
  • Syria: A Stream of Bodies in Aleppo’s River
    Jun 4, 2013
    At least 147 people whose bodies were found in the city of Aleppo’s river between January and March, 2013, were probably executed in government-controlled areas.
  • Syria: Allow Civilians to Flee from al-Qusayr
    Jun 1, 2013
  • Learning a Lesson from Libya & Iraq: Reconciliation, Not Revenge!
    May 29, 2013
    Even as Syria’s nightmare continues, policy makers should consider the country’s future once hostilities end. Those planning for Syria’s “day after” should learn a lesson from the past and avoid an approach just adopted in Libya, and before that in Iraq, that will widen divisions rather than heal the wounds.
  • Syria: Rights Activists Face Terrorism Charges
    May 17, 2013
    The international community should urge the Syrian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release and drop all charges against a freedom of expression activist and two of his colleagues, 19 regional and international human rights organizations said today. Mazen Darwish and two of his colleagues from the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), Hussein Gharir and Hani Zaitani, are facing trial on terrorism charges for their peaceful activism, the groups said.
  • Syria: Visit Reveals Torture Chambers
    May 17, 2013
    Government security branches in Raqqa city hold documents and potential physical evidence indicating that detainees were arbitrarily detained and tortured there while the city was under government control. Human Rights Watch researchers visited the State Security and Military Intelligence facilities in Raqqa, now under the de facto control of local armed opposition groups, in late April 2013.
  • Syria: Brigade Fighting in Homs Implicated in Atrocities
    May 13, 2013
    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
  • Is This the Most Disgusting Atrocity Filmed in the Syrian Civil War?
    May 13, 2013
    Even by the standards of Syria's ever-worsening stream of atrocity and massacre videos, the latest footage from the country cannot fail to shock for its sheer savagery. The video, posted on May 12 but filmed on March 26 near the Syrian town of Qusayr, on the border with Lebanon, opens by calmly filming a rebel commander cutting open the chest of what we assume is a deceased pro-Bashar al-Assad fighter, removing his heart and liver with surgical precision and sang-froid.
  • Lebanon: Tit-for-Tat Border Kidnappings
    May 2, 2013
    The Lebanese government has failed to take adequate measures to protect against, deter, and punish retaliatory kidnappings along sectarian lines in border regions. Human Rights Watch interviewed both victims and family members who carried out retaliatory kidnappings, prompted by alleged detentions and kidnappings of their relatives by the Syrian government forces and armed opposition groups.
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