Human rights in Syria
Encyclopedia
Human rights in Syria have been described as "poor". Since 1963, emergency rule
has remained in effect which gives security forces sweeping powers of arrest and detention.
During the 2011 Syrian uprising
, a UN report described actions by the security forces as being "gross violations of human rights". 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.
The country is governed by a one-party state without free elections. The authorities harass and imprison human rights activists and other critics of the government. Freedom of expression, association and assembly are strictly controlled. Women and ethnic minorities face discrimination. According Human Rights Watch
, President Bashar al-Assad
failed to improve Syria’s human rights record in the first 10 years of his rule,
and by the eleventh (2011), Syria's human rights situation had become one of the worst in the world. According to Amnesty International
, the government may be guilty of crimes against humanity based on "witness accounts of deaths in custody, torture and arbitrary detention," during the crackdown against the 2011 uprising
.
, 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 parities were licensed and emergency rule, imposed in 1963, remained in effect.
In 2011 Human Rights Watch stated that Syria's human rights situation is among the worst in the world.
In 1982 Hafez al-Assad
responded to an insurrection in the city of Hama by sending a paramilitary force to indiscriminately kill between 10,000 and 20,000 civilians
including children, women, and the elderly.
Amnesty International reports that women have been subject to discrimination and gender-based violence.
For several years, the "watchdog organization" Freedom House
has rated political rights in Syria as "7" — the "least free" rating on its scale of 1 to 7 — and given Syria a rating of "Not Free". 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.
According to the 2008 report on human rights
of the State Department of the American government, the Syrian government's "respect for human rights worsened". Members of the security forces arrested and detained individuals without providing just cause, often held prisoners in "lengthy pretrial and incommunicado detention", and "tortured and physically abused prisoners and detainees". The regime imposed significant restrictions on freedom of speech
, press
, assembly
, and association
, amid an atmosphere of government corruption. According to Arab Press Freedom Watch, the current regime has one of the worst records on freedom of expression in the Arab world
. According to Arab Press Network, "despite a generally repressive political climate", there were "signs of positive change," during the 2007 elections.
According to a 2008 report by Reporters without Borders
, "Journalists have to tightly censor themselves for fear of being thrown into Adra Prison
."
s remain in detention, with many belonging to the banned Muslim Brotherhood
and the Communist Party
. Since June 2000, more than 700 long-term political prisoners have been freed by President al-Asad, though an estimated 4,000 are reportedly still imprisoned. Information regarding those detained in relation to political or security-related charges is not divulged by the authorities. The government has not acknowledged responsibility for around 17,000 Lebanese citizens and Palestinians who "disappeared" in Lebanon in the 1980s and early 1990s and are thought to be imprisoned in Syria. In 2009, hundreds of people were arrested and imprisoned for political reasons. Military Police were reported to have killed at least 17 detainees. Human rights activists are continually targeted and imprisoned by the government.
Sednaya prison alone houses more than 600 political prisoners. The authorities have kept many for years behind bars, often well past their legal sentence. The estimated 17,000 prisoners who have disappeared over the years suggests that Syria may have hidden mass grave
s.
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.
Sharia Islamic law
, is a principal source of legislation. The Constitution provides for freedom of faith and religious practice, provided that the religious rites do not disturb the public order. The Government continued to monitor the activities of all groups, including religious groups, and discouraged proselytism, which it deemed a threat to relations among religious groups. The Government also continued to discriminate against the Jehovah's Witnesses. There were occasional reports of minor tensions between religious groups, some attributable to economic rivalries rather than religious affiliation.
In 2010 Syrian police began a crackdown that led to the arrest of over 25 men. The men were charged with various crimes ranging from homosexual acts
and illegal drug use to encouraging homosexual behavior and organizing obscene parties.
The United Nations, meanwhile, has documented that Syrian security services officers have gang rape boys as young as 11 years old during the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. The report also documents over 250 children killed and some were as young as 2 years old.
continues to maintain control of the press. Journalists and bloggers have been arrested and tried. 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.
Internet censorship in Syria is extensive. Syria bans websites for political reasons and arrests people accessing them. Internet cafes are required to record all the comments users post on chat forums.
Websites such as Wikipedia
Arabic, Youtube
and Facebook
have been intermittently blocked in the past. Filtering and blocking was found to be pervasive in the political and Internet tools areas, and selective in the social and conflict/security areas by the OpenNet Initiative
in August 2009. Syria has been on Reporters Without Borders
' Enemy of the Internet list since 2006 when the list was established.
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.
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.
State of emergency
A state of emergency is a governmental declaration that may suspend some normal functions of the executive, legislative and judicial powers, alert citizens to change their normal behaviours, or order government agencies to implement emergency preparedness plans. It can also be used as a rationale...
has remained in effect which gives security forces sweeping powers of arrest and detention.
During the 2011 Syrian uprising
2011 Syrian uprising
The 2011 Syrian uprising is an ongoing internal conflict occurring in Syria. Protests started on 26 January 2011, and escalated into an uprising by 15 March 2011...
, a UN report described actions by the security forces as being "gross violations of human rights". 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.
The country is governed by a one-party state without free elections. The authorities harass and imprison human rights activists and other critics of the government. Freedom of expression, association and assembly are strictly controlled. Women and ethnic minorities face discrimination. According Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
, President Bashar al-Assad
Bashar al-Assad
Bashar al-Assad is the President of Syria and Regional Secretary of the Ba'ath Party. His father Hafez al-Assad ruled Syria for 29 years until his death in 2000. Al-Assad was elected in 2000, re-elected in 2007, unopposed each time.- Early Life :...
failed to improve Syria’s human rights record in the first 10 years of his rule,
and by the eleventh (2011), Syria's human rights situation had become one of the worst in the world. According to Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
, the government may be guilty of crimes against humanity based on "witness accounts of deaths in custody, torture and arbitrary detention," during the crackdown against the 2011 uprising
2011 Syrian uprising
The 2011 Syrian uprising is an ongoing internal conflict occurring in Syria. Protests started on 26 January 2011, and escalated into an uprising by 15 March 2011...
.
Overview
According to Human Rights WatchHuman Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
, 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 parities were licensed and emergency rule, imposed in 1963, remained in effect.
In 2011 Human Rights Watch stated that Syria's human rights situation is among the worst in the world.
In 1982 Hafez al-Assad
Hafez al-Assad
Hafez ibn 'Ali ibn Sulayman al-Assad or more commonly Hafez al-Assad was the President of Syria for three decades. Assad's rule consolidated the power of the central government after decades of coups and counter-coups, such as Operation Wappen in 1957 conducted by the Eisenhower administration and...
responded to an insurrection in the city of Hama by sending a paramilitary force to indiscriminately kill between 10,000 and 20,000 civilians
Hama massacre
The Hama massacre occurred in February 1982, when the Syrian army, under the orders of the president of Syria Hafez al-Assad, conducted a scorched earth policy against the town of Hama in order to quell a revolt by the Sunni Muslim community against the regime of al-Assad...
including children, women, and the elderly.
Amnesty International reports that women have been subject to discrimination and gender-based violence.
For several years, the "watchdog organization" Freedom House
Freedom House
Freedom House is an international non-governmental organization based in Washington, D.C. that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom and human rights...
has rated political rights in Syria as "7" — the "least free" rating on its scale of 1 to 7 — and given Syria a rating of "Not Free". 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.
According to the 2008 report on human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
of the State Department of the American government, the Syrian government's "respect for human rights worsened". Members of the security forces arrested and detained individuals without providing just cause, often held prisoners in "lengthy pretrial and incommunicado detention", and "tortured and physically abused prisoners and detainees". The regime imposed significant restrictions on freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
, press
Freedom of the press
Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the freedom of communication and expression through vehicles including various electronic media and published materials...
, assembly
Freedom of assembly
Freedom of assembly, sometimes used interchangeably with the freedom of association, is the individual right to come together and collectively express, promote, pursue and defend common interests...
, and association
Freedom of association
Freedom of association is the individual right to come together with other individuals and collectively express, promote, pursue and defend common interests....
, amid an atmosphere of government corruption. According to Arab Press Freedom Watch, the current regime has one of the worst records on freedom of expression in the Arab world
Arab world
The Arab world refers to Arabic-speaking states, territories and populations in North Africa, Western Asia and elsewhere.The standard definition of the Arab world comprises the 22 states and territories of the Arab League stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the...
. According to Arab Press Network, "despite a generally repressive political climate", there were "signs of positive change," during the 2007 elections.
According to a 2008 report by Reporters without Borders
Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders is a France-based international non-governmental organization that advocates freedom of the press. It was founded in 1985, by Robert Ménard, Rony Brauman and the journalist Jean-Claude Guillebaud. Jean-François Julliard has served as Secretary General since 2008...
, "Journalists have to tightly censor themselves for fear of being thrown into Adra Prison
Adra Prison
Adra Prison is a prison in Syria, on the north-east outskirts of Damascus.Civil prisoners and leading political prisoners are held in the prison. In 2010, the prison held 7,000 prisoners, a dozen of them women...
."
Judicial process
Syria has a long history of arbitrary arrest, unfair trials and prolonged detention of suspects. Thousands of political prisonerPolitical prisoner
According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....
s remain in detention, with many belonging to the banned Muslim Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers is the world's oldest and one of the largest Islamist parties, and is the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states. It was founded in 1928 in Egypt by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna and by the late 1940s had an...
and the Communist Party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
. Since June 2000, more than 700 long-term political prisoners have been freed by President al-Asad, though an estimated 4,000 are reportedly still imprisoned. Information regarding those detained in relation to political or security-related charges is not divulged by the authorities. The government has not acknowledged responsibility for around 17,000 Lebanese citizens and Palestinians who "disappeared" in Lebanon in the 1980s and early 1990s and are thought to be imprisoned in Syria. In 2009, hundreds of people were arrested and imprisoned for political reasons. Military Police were reported to have killed at least 17 detainees. Human rights activists are continually targeted and imprisoned by the government.
Political prisoners
Among the scores of prisoners of conscience arrested in 2009, and hundreds political prisoners already in prison, some of the more prominent prisoners were- Kamal al-LabwaniKamal al-LabwaniDr. Kamal al-Labwani is a Syrian doctor and artist, considered one of the most prominent members of the Syrian opposition movement. He was imprisoned in Adra Prison, near Damascus until November 15, 2011, according to state media. Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience.- Life...
, 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. - Nabil Khlioui, an alleged Islamist from Deir al-Zour, who with at least 10 other Islamists "remained in incommunicado detention without charge or trial at the end of 2009.
- Nabil Khlioui and at least 12 other alleged Islamists, mostly from Deir al-Zour, were arrested. At least 10 of them remained in incommunicado detention without charge or trial at the end of the year.
- Mesh’al al-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.
- twelve leaders of a prominent gathering of opposition groups, the Damascus DeclarationDamascus DeclarationThe Damascus Declaration was a statement of unity by Syrian opposition figures issued in October 2005. It criticized the Syrian government regime as `authoritarian, totalitarian and cliquish,` and called for `peaceful, gradual,` reform `founded on accord, and based on dialogue and recognition of...
, continue to serve 30-month prison terms. Among those detained is Riad SeifRiad SeifRiad Seif is Syrian political dissident, formerly a member of the Parliament of Syria and prominent businessman, who founded and lead the Forum for National Dialogue. Seif was elected to parliament in 1994 as an independent and again in 1998...
, 62, a former member of parliament who is in poor health. - 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.
- one released prisoner was Aref DalilaAref DalilaProfessor Aref Dalila is a Syrian economics professor and former Dean of the Faculty of Economics in Damascus University. He was arrested for his political activity during the Damascus Spring period.-Life:...
. 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 SpringDamascus SpringThe Damascus Spring was a period of intense political and social debate in Syria which started after the death of President Hafiz al-Asad in June 2000 and continued to some degree until autumn 2001, when most of the activities associated with it were suppressed by the government.- Background...
” before being released by a presidential pardon. - 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 DefendersMartin Ennals Award for Human Rights DefendersThe Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, called also "the Nobel Prize for human rights", was created in 1993 to honour and protect individuals around the world who demonstrate exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights...
, 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.
Sednaya prison alone houses more than 600 political prisoners. The authorities have kept many for years behind bars, often well past their legal sentence. The estimated 17,000 prisoners who have disappeared over the years suggests that Syria may have hidden mass grave
Mass grave
A mass grave is a grave containing multiple number of human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. There is no strict definition of the minimum number of bodies required to constitute a mass grave, although the United Nations defines a mass grave as a burial site which...
s.
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.
Freedom of religion
The Constitution provides for freedom of religion; however, the Government mildly imposes restrictions on this right. While there is no official state religion, the Constitution requires that the president be Muslim and stipulates that Islamic jurisprudence, an expansion ofSharia Islamic law
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
, is a principal source of legislation. The Constitution provides for freedom of faith and religious practice, provided that the religious rites do not disturb the public order. The Government continued to monitor the activities of all groups, including religious groups, and discouraged proselytism, which it deemed a threat to relations among religious groups. The Government also continued to discriminate against the Jehovah's Witnesses. There were occasional reports of minor tensions between religious groups, some attributable to economic rivalries rather than religious affiliation.
LGBT rights
Article 520 of the penal code of 1949, prohibits having homosexual relations, i.e. "carnal relations against the order of nature", and provides for at least three-years imprisonment.In 2010 Syrian police began a crackdown that led to the arrest of over 25 men. The men were charged with various crimes ranging from homosexual acts
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
and illegal drug use to encouraging homosexual behavior and organizing obscene parties.
The United Nations, meanwhile, has documented that Syrian security services officers have gang rape boys as young as 11 years old during the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. The report also documents over 250 children killed and some were as young as 2 years old.
Freedom of movement
The secret police prevents people from even approaching embassies of foreign countries, making difficult to get a visa to travel abroad. Furthermore, Syrians can not leave the country without an "exit visa" granted by the authorities.Freedom of speech and the media
The number of news media has increased in the past decade, but the Baath PartyBaath Party
The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was a political party mixing Arab nationalist and Arab socialist interests, opposed to Western imperialism, and calling for the renaissance or resurrection and unification of the Arab world into a single state. Ba'ath is also spelled Ba'th or Baath and means...
continues to maintain control of the press. Journalists and bloggers have been arrested and tried. 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.
Internet censorship in Syria is extensive. Syria bans websites for political reasons and arrests people accessing them. Internet cafes are required to record all the comments users post on chat forums.
Websites such as Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
Arabic, Youtube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
and Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
have been intermittently blocked in the past. Filtering and blocking was found to be pervasive in the political and Internet tools areas, and selective in the social and conflict/security areas by the OpenNet Initiative
OpenNet Initiative
The OpenNet Initiative is a joint project whose goal is to monitor and report on internet filtering and surveillance practices by nations. The project employs a number of technical means, as well as an international network of investigators, to determine the extent and nature of government-run...
in August 2009. Syria has been on Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders is a France-based international non-governmental organization that advocates freedom of the press. It was founded in 1985, by Robert Ménard, Rony Brauman and the journalist Jean-Claude Guillebaud. Jean-François Julliard has served as Secretary General since 2008...
' Enemy of the Internet list since 2006 when the list was established.
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
Self-censorship
Self-censorship is the act of censoring or classifying one's own work , out of fear of, or deference to, the sensibilities of others, without overt pressure from any specific party or institution of authority...
to avoid the state's ambiguous grounds for arrest.
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.
Ethnic and racial discrimination
Syria is home to 1.7 million Kurds who constitute 10% of the population, forming the largest non-Arab ethnic minority in the country. They were denied citizenship until April 2011 (Decree 49).See also
- Al-MarsadAl-MarsadAl-Marsad – The Arab Center for Human Rights in the Golan Heights is an independent human rights organization that operates in the Golan Heights...
- Wissam TarifWissam TarifWissam Kassem Tarif has played a key role in the field of pro-Democracy and Human Rights work in Syria and Lebanon, as both an intellectual and activist...
- Human rights in the Middle EastHuman Rights in the Middle EastHuman rights in the Middle East are mostly covered in individual articles, listed below. -United States and European points of view on political rights:...
- 2011 Syrian protests
- Turkish pilgrim bus attackTurkish pilgrim bus attackThe Turkish pilgrim bus attack occurred on November 21, 2011 when two out of a convoy of eight to nine buses carrying Turkish pilgrims returning from Saudi Arabia came under fire from Syrian soldiers....
External links
- Syria at Human Rights WatchHuman Rights WatchHuman Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
- Syria at International Federation for Human Rights
- 2010 Human Rights Report: Syria, U.S. Department of State, 8 April 2011
- Censorship in Syria at IFEXInternational Freedom of Expression ExchangeThe International Freedom of Expression eXchange , founded in 1992, is a global network of around 90 non-governmental organisations that promotes and defends the right to freedom of expression....
- Foundation for the Defense of Prisoners of Conscience - FDPOC
- Syria's crisis of expression
- Uprising against the Assad Regime in Syria: Is This a Second Libya? June 2011, Qantara.de