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A DEVASTATING DECADE Violations of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in the Syrian War

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A DEVASTATING DECADE Violations of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in the Syrian War A child runs along a street in front of clouds of smoke billowing following a reported air strike on Douma, the main town of Syria’s rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta on March 20, 2018. HASAN MOHAMED/AFP via Getty Images A DEVASTATING DECADE Violations of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in the Syrian War russian non-governmental organisations and human rights defenders 2021 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS IINTRODUCTION 4 AIMS AND METHODOLOGY OF THIS REPORT 7 TEN DEVASTATING YEARS OF WAR 11 GROSS VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND HUMANITARIAN LAW 21 ARBITRARY DETENTIONS, TORTURE AND ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES IN DETENTION FACILITIES 22 Government-Controlled Detention Facilities 23 Detention Conditions at Intelligence Branches and Military Prisons 26 Torture and Executions in Government-Controlled Detention Facilities 28 Prison as an Instrument of Corruption 32 Detention Facilities Controlled by Other Parties to the Conflict 33 Sexual Abuse in Detention Facilities 34 ATTACKS PROHIBITED UNDER INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW 39 Definitions and Applicable International Law 40 Violations in Military Operations 44 USE OF INDISCRIMINATE WEAPONS AND WEAPONS PROHIBITED BY INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS 55 Alleged Use of Barrel Bombs and Cluster Munitions 55 Use of Incendiary Weapons 58 Alleged Use of Chemical Weapons 58 SIEGES AND STARVATION AS A METHOD OF WARFARE 69 War Economy 77 EPISODES OF WAR 81 EASTERN GHOUTA 82 Life Under the Siege 83 Bombardment and Witness Accounts of Chemical Weapon Use 88 “De-escalation zone” and Operation Damascus Steel 92 RAQQA 98 The Islamic State’s Rise to Power 99 Life in the Self-Proclaimed Islamic State 102 Operation Wrath of Euphrates 106 Consequences of the Operation 109 ALEPPO 112 Mass Protests and Government Crackdown 112 A Divided City (2012–2016) 114 The Siege and Bombardment of Aleppo 117 Forced Evacuation of Civilians and Fighters from Aleppo 125 HOMS 128 DARAA 133 IDLIB GOVERNORATE 141 Protests and the Beginnings of Conflict 141 Idlib: Home of the Forcibly Displaced 143 Life Under Hayat Tahrir al-Sham 145 “De-escalation Zone” and Operation Dawn of Idlib 148 Displacement and Humanitarian Crisis 154 SYRIAN REFUGEES IN RUSSIA 159 THE STATUS OF SYRIAN REFUGEES IN RUSSIA 160 Difficulties Obtaining Status 160 THE REALITIES OF REFUGEE LIFE 168 Reasons for Coming to Russia and Interactions with State Institutions 169 Adaptation and Integration 172 THE RETURN OF SYRIAN CIRCASSIANS TO RUSSIA 178 CONCLUSION 184 RECOMMENDATIONS 188 2 THE MAP OF SYRIAN ARAB REPUBLIC 3 A DEVASTATING DECADE INTRODUCTION The complex, multi-layered conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic (Syria) started with peaceful anti-government protests in March 2011.1 Against the backdrop of the Arab Spring, protesters rose against the high rate of unemployment, corruption, police brutality, and the lack of political freedoms.2 The protesters also called for an end to the state of emergency that had been in effect since 1963.3 According to Human Rights Watch the human rights situation in Syria was among the most deplorable in the world.4 Amnesty International also claimed that Syrian authorities had used torture and enforced disappearances for decades as tools to suppress dissent.5 Many of the victims we interviewed for this report provided accounts of the Syrian government’s widespread use of unlawful force against protesters. Syrian state security forces responded to the protests with violence, including by armed force.6 Tensions escalated quickly, and more and more people took to the streets demanding the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad. The government’s large-scale violence against initially peaceful protesters pushed the opposition forces to take up arms in July 2011.7 By the summer of 2012, the protests had escalated into full-scale armed conflict.8 Eventually it transformed from a domestic to 1 “Syrian Civil War and History of a Political Settlement” (“Гражданская война в Сирии и история политического урегулирования”), Ria Novosti, January 29, 2018, https://ria.ru/20180129/1513416087.html (accessed November 16, 2020). 2 “10 questions to help understand the conflict in Syria” (“10 вопросов, которые помогут понять конфликт в Сирии”), BBC, March 14, 2018, https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-43386150 (accessed November 16, 2020). 3 М.Y. Shepovalenko, ed., “Syrian Border” (“Сирийский Рубеж”), Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST), 2016, http://cast.ru/upload/iblock/686/6864bf9d4485b9cd83cc3614575e646a.pdf (accessed November 16, 2020) p. 72; “Syrian Frontier Attracted Ministers’ Attention” (“Сирийский рубеж’ привлек внимание министров”), Rossiyskaya Gazeta, December 7, 2016, https://rg.ru/2016/12/07/sirijskij-rubezh-privlek-vnimanie-glav-minoborony-i-mid-rf.html (accessed November 16, 2020). 4 “Three protesters killed in clashes between demonstrators and police in Syria” (“В Сирии в столкновениях демонстрантов с полицией убиты трое протестующих”), Radio Svoboda, March 19, 2011, https://www.svoboda.org/a/2343134.html (accessed November 16, 2020); Human Rights Watch, World Report 2010 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2010), Syria chapter, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2010/country-chapters/syria Human Rights Watch, World Report 2011, (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2011), Syria chapter, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2011/country-chapters/syria (accessed November 16, 2020). 5 “What is Bashar al-Assad’s reputation as a bloody dictator based on?” (“На чем основана репутация Башара Асада как кровавого диктатора”), BBC, February 7, 2017, https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-38895045 (accessed November 16, 2020). 6 “Syria: Government Crackdown Leads to Protester Deaths,” Human Rights Watch new release, March 21, 2011, https://www.hrw.org/news/2011/03/21/syria-government-crackdown-leads-protester-deaths (accessed November 16, 2020); Human Rights Watch, “‘We live as in War,’ Crackdown on Protesters in the Governorate of Homs,” November 11, 2011, https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/syria1111webwcover_0.pdf (accessed November 16, 2020), p. 17. 7 Human Rights Watch, “He Didn’t Have to Die: Indiscriminate Attacks by Opposition Groups in Syria,” March 22, 2015, https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/syria0315_ForUpload.pdf (accessed November 16, 2020), p. 10. 8 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), “International review of the Red Cross,” Vol. 99, No. 906, 2017, https://international-review.icrc.org/sites/default/files/irrc_99_906.pdf (accessed November 16, 2020). 4 INTRODUCTION an internationalised armed conflict, drawing in multiple external actors, including Iran, Turkey, the United States (US), and Russia. This protracted war has left the country in ruins and had a devastating impact on its population of 22.5 million.9 The war drew in not only key regional actors, but also military-political alliances and global powers. Global radical extremist groups readily used the conflict to promote their ultra-radical ideologies. New groups making widespread use of prohibited methods of warfare and violence against the population also emerged. Subsequently, the United Nations (UN) and Russian Federation designated many of them as terrorist organisations. To this day, apart from terrorist groups, moderate armed opposition continues to confront Syrian government forces. The Syrian conflict has become one of the largest humanitarian catastrophes in recent decades, involving large-scale human rights violations,10 war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Almost all the country’s residents have, to some degree, fallen victim. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that around 585,500 people had died in Syria as of January 2020. The organisation itself had documented 380,636 deaths—of whom 115,490 are civilians and 21,949 are children under the age of 18.11 More than 2 million Syrians have been permanently injured, while hundreds of thousands lived through sieges and hunger. Tens of thousands have been arbitrarily detained and subjected to the cruellest forms of torture or sexual violence. An estimated 88,000 civilians have died under torture in government detention centres and prisons. Tens of thousands have been forcibly disappeared or are missing, including 3,200 civilians and fighters abducted by the so-called Islamic State (IS); 4,100 members of the government forces; and more than 1,800 people abducted by armed 9 “Syrian conflict: what do the USA, Russia, Turkey and Iran want?” (“Сирийский конфликт: чего хотят США, Россия, Турция и Иран?”), Deutsche Welle, November 4, 2017, https://p.dw.com/p/2myQy (accessed December 10, 2020); Human Rights Watch, World Report 2020 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2020), Syria chapter, https://www.hrw.org/ru/world-report/2020/country-chapters/337422 (accessed November 16, 2020). 10 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2020 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2020), Syria chapter, https://www.hrw.org/ru/world-report/2020/country-chapters/337422 (accessed November 16, 2020). 11 “Nearly 585,000 people have been killed since the beginning of the Syrian Revolution,” Syrian Observatory for Human Rights press release, January 4, 2020, http://www.syriahr.com/en/?p=152189 (accessed November 16, 2020). 5 A DEVASTATING DECADE extremist opposition groups for their support of the Syrian government.12 Hundreds of hospitals and schools have been bombed out, the economy is near-destroyed, and the cultural heritage and historic monuments decimated. The conflict has led to one of the largest refugee crises in modern history. Over 5.5 million Syrians fled to neighbouring countries and some 6.1 million others were internally displaced.13 The majority of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) were forced to move around on multiple occasions, from house to house, from town to town, to escape bombardments, sieges, and violence. On July 2, 2020, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that there were 5,551,703 refugees in the region, of whom 2 million were Syrians registered by the UNHCR in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon. The Turkish government announced that it has 3.5 million Syrians on its territory; by 2018 there were reportedly 789,465 Syrian refugees in Germany14 and more than 32,000 in North Africa.
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