Clik here to view.
Human Rights Watch says children are among those 'systematically' killed and tortured during peaceful protests
Syrian security forces have been accused of systematic killings and torture by a leading human rights group that says the abuses constitute crimes against humanity.
A new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) focuses on violations and abuses in the Daraa governorate in southern Syria, the centre of the "Arab spring" protests, which have spread across the country in the last two months.
Many of the incidents recorded by the New York-based watchdog – systematic killings, beatings, torture using electroshock devices, and detention of people seeking medical care – have gone largely unreported because of the information blockade imposed by the Syrian authorities.
Publication of the report coincides with accelerating attempts at the UN to hold the regime of President Bashar al-Assad to account for repression on a scale unseen in Syria since the early 1980s.
"For more than two months now Syrian security forces have been killing and torturing their own people with complete impunity," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at HRW. "They need to stop – and if they don't, it is the security council's responsibility to make sure that the people responsible face justice."
Protests in Daraa, close to the southern border with Jordan, erupted in response to the detention and torture of 15 children accused of painting slogans calling for the government's downfall.
Security forces have "repeatedly and systematically" opened fire on overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrators, the report says. Local activists say at least 418 people in the Daraa governorate alone, and more than 887 across Syria, have died, although accoring to HRW exact numbers are impossible to verify.
Witnesses from Daraa provided consistent accounts of security forces using lethal force against protesters and bystanders, in most cases without advance warning or any effort to disperse crowds by nonviolent means.
Members of various branches of the security services and numerous snipers positioned on rooftops had deliberately targeted the protesters, the witnesses said, and many of the victims had lethal head, neck, and chest wounds. HRW documented several cases in which security forces in Daraa and other cities had received shoot-to-kill orders.
The report documents attacks on a mosque that served as a rallying point for protesters as well as on a makeshift hospital for the wounded, attacks during a funeral procession, and the blockading of Daraa and neighbouring villages.
The Syrian authorities repeatedly blamed protesters in Daraa for initiating the violence. But all the testimony collected by HRW indicates that the protests were, in most cases, peaceful.
Government forces are still stationed in and around Deraa, stopping townspeople from leaving the town or even moving between neighbourhoods. Supplies of water, which were cut off in April, have been restored but food is restricted.
Meanwhile, activists report continuing attacks by security forces on Hirak, a nearby town in which up to eight people are reported to have been killed in the past three days.
Razan Zeitouneh, a human rights lawyer, said the victims included an 11-year-old girl who was shot dead on Tuesday night.
"There is firing from time to time and a campaign of arrests there," she said.
"Deraa is still a governorate under siege," added Nadim Houry, a senior researcher at HRW. "The army may have redeployed outside the main towns, but they still control movement, communications and information, and have not ceased their arrest campaigns."
Meanwhile, troops backed by tanks and helicopters have entered the towns of Rastan and Talbiseh, both just north of the city of Homs. Residents in both towns report similar abuses to those described by Human Rights Watch in Deraa, including mass shootings.
In Rastan, 18 people were killed on Tuesday, according to Zeitouneh, with at least another 32 injured. Residents say the road north from Homs to the town has been blocked off.
The HRW report documents several incidents in which, in response to the killings of protesters, Daraa residents resorted to violence, setting cars and buildings on fire and killing members of the security forces. Such incidents should be further investigated, said HRW, but they by no means justify the "massive and systematic use of lethal force" against the demonstrators. In at least two cases, people died because they had been denied medical care.
Ex-detainees said that they, as well as hundreds of others they saw in detention, had been subjected to torture, including prolonged beatings with sticks, twisted wires and other devices, and electric shocks. Some were tortured on improvised metal and wooden "racks" and, in at least one case, a male detainee was raped with a baton.
Two witnesses independently reported the extrajudicial execution of detainees on 1 May at an ad hoc detention facility at a football field in Daraa. One detainee said security forces had executed 26 detainees; the other described a group of "more than 20." Human Rights Watch said it had been unable to further corroborate these accounts. "However, the detailed information provided by two independent witnesses and the fact that other parts of their statements were fully corroborated by other witnesses supports the credibility of the allegations," the report said.