Four years later and Syria still faces one of the biggest human rights and humanitarian crisis in recent history. 

The Syrian internal conflict that broke out in 2011 has had devastating consequences on people’s lives leaving behind thousands of deaths and millions of displaced people. 

Background

Although minor protests had already begun in Syria since January 2011 within the frame of the Arab spring uprising, the situation erupted in March of the same year with mass protests triggered after the arrest and torture of a group of teenagers who had written antigovernment slogans on a wall in Deraa City in Southwestern Syria. 

In response to the civil uprising, security forces suppressed the protests violently and opened fire against protesters, killing several civilians.  

As  protests intensified  across the country and security forces continued to use violence, in an effort to ease the unrest, the government of Bashar al-Assad responded by ending the 48 year state of emergency and promising more freedoms and democratic reforms.

Doubting Assad’s promises, the crowd continued with massive protests. Social unrest spread rapidly within the country, with the demonstrators asking for President Assad’s resignation and the government answering with more violent attacks and killings by using tanks and weaponry.

In July 2011, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) was founded with goal to bring down Assad’s regime. Initially, FSA was the only rebel force in the country but later more armed opposition forces were founded including the Islamic Front (IS) in 2013. 

The rise of jihadist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) gave new dimensions to the conflict, playing its own destructive role. ISIL, which has established itself as a central Syrian opposition force, rules a third of Syria's territory and most of its oil and gas production since 2014.

In 2011, opposition groups came together to form the Syrian National Council (SNC) with aim to end the presidency of Assad. In 2012, the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (most widely known as Syrian National Coalition) was founded, forming a wider coalition of opposition groups. The Syrian National Coalition has been recognized by the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (CCASG) and the Arab League as Syrians’ main representative.

 In 2012, a United Nations report characterized the conflict “overtly sectarian in nature […] [mainly] between Syria’s Alawite community, from which most of the Government’s senior political and military figures hail, and the country’s majority Sunni community who are broadly (but not uniformly) in support of the anti-Government armed groups.” (OHCHR, 2012) 

Foreign Involvement

With the formation of rebel groups that were fighting against government forces, the conflict that was initially started to end the authoritarian regime of Assad expanded into a brutal civil war, also attracting extensive foreign involvement. 

Because of the regional and world powers’ involvement with the war, the Syrian war has been also labeled as a proxy war. 

Iran and Hezbollah have both supported the Syrian Government by providing battle troops and artillery, while Russia has also largely showed its support to the Syrian Government. 

In 2011 and 2012 Russia and China both vetoed resolutions of the United Nations Security Council that threatened the Syrian government with targeted sanctions if it would not cease military operations against demonstrators.  

Upon the beginning of the conflict, the Arab league, the European Union and several western countries expressed their support for the demonstrators’ freedom of expression and intensively criticized the Syrian government’s brutal crackdowns against the protesters.

Since 2011, both the United States and the European Union have imposed several sanctions on the Syrian government, including bans and restrictions on travels, oil imports and exportation of petroleum products and equipment. 

United States, France Britain, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Lebanon have all supported the main Syrian Opposition Coalition both politically and militarily.  Arab governments, including Gulf States and Jordan, have provided weaponry and economic support to the opposition.

Impact

Between 2011 and 2014 the number of people killed during the Syrian civil war reached approximately 200.000 according to the UN. However, other sources indicate that that the number of causalities is much higher, reaching 300.00 people. 

Based on the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ (OCHA) estimations, 12.2 million people, out of 22 million that is the total Syrian population are in great need of humanitarian aid including 5.6 million children.

The number of refugees fleeing in neighbouring countries such as Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt, has peaked in 4 million while 7.6 million have been displaced by the conflicts. (OCHA, 2015)

According to the UN “in other areas where conditions deteriorate every day, parties to the conflict severely restrict access to that in need. In Raqqa and Deir ez Zor, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has closed down the offices of several aid organizations, including the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.” (UN News Centre, 2015)

Deductions and Recommendations

Vast human rights violations have been committed across the country since the conflict began. Public executions, sexual violence, extensive use of torture, use of chemical weapons against civilians and children have been treated with indifference and impunity.

Since Syria is not a member state of the Rome Statute, which establishes the International Criminal Court (ICC), it cannot be prosecuted to the ICC for crimes against humanity and war crimes. However, based on Article 13 (b) of the Rome Statute such crimes can be prosecuted to ICC via UN Security Council’s referral.

Until now, the UN Security Council has failed to do so, as Russia and China have both casted a veto on a draft UN resolution asking the Syrian crisis to be referred to the ICC! 

As Valerie Amos, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs said to the Security Council “the inability of [the] Council and countries with influence over the different parties at war in Syria to agree on the elements for a political solution in the country means that the humanitarian consequences will continue to be dire for millions of Syrians.”

CITIZENS RIGHTS WATCH (CRW) calls for the end of human rights atrocities in Syria and asks for accountability and justice to be served! 

We claim that these atrocities are sized to war crimes and crimes against humanity and have to come to an end!

We ask for the end of impunity across the country and the Syrian conflict to be referred to the ICC! 

Contact: Ms. Athanasia Zagorianou, LLM                   Researcher & Member, CRW Trustees Council zagorianoua@gmail.com

Sources

New UN report shows wars in Syria and Iraq drive highest asylum numbers in 22 years (2015). UN News Centre. Available at: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=50429#.VRhSQvnF-oN

OCHA, “Updated Overview: 2015 Syria Response Plan and 2015-2016 Regional Refugee And Resilience Plan”, Kuwait, 2015 Available at: http://www.unocha.org/syria/third-pledging-conference

Syria crisis: Where key countries stand (2014). BBC News. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23849587

Syria: The story of the conflict (2015). BBC News. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-26116868

Syria’s war continues ‘unabated and with total impunity,’ Security Council told (2015). UN News Centre. Available at: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=50194#.VRrPvfnF-oM

UN General Assembly, Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (last amended 2010), 17 July 1998, ISBN No. 92-9227-227-6. Available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b3a84.html

UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic established pursuant to United Nations Human Rights Council Resolutions S-17/1, 19/22 and 21/26, 20 December 2012. Available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/50d2e6bf2.html