He and other activists, including several members of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) are standing trial before a special counterterrorism court on the basis of this law. The court does not meet basic international fair trial standards. The charges are brought under the guise of countering violent militancy, but the allegations against the activists actually amount to such acts as distributing humanitarian aid and documenting human rights abuses. 

Released detainees and defectors describe a range of torture methods used by Syrian security forces including prolonged beatings, often with batons and wires, use of painful stress positions, electrocution, sexual assault, the pulling of fingernails, and mock execution. During a visit to an abandoned state security detention facility in Raqqa in April 2013, Human Rights Watch found a basat al-reeh torture device—a cross-shaped contraption used to immobilize detainees during torture.

Several former detainees said they witnessed people dying from torture in detention. At least 490 detainees died in custody in 2013, according to local activists.

In February 2013, Human Rights Watch documented the death in detention of Omar Aziz, 64, a peaceful activist who had been helping local committees deliver aid. A second detainee Ayham Ghazzoul, 26, a human rights activist, and member of SCM, died in detention in November, a released detainee told his family.

Armed Opposition Abuses

Armed opposition groups have increasingly carried out serious abuses including indiscriminate attacks, extrajudicial executions, kidnapping, and torture. Foreign fighters and jihadist groups have been among the worst perpetrators of the abuses that Human Rights Watch has documented.

On August 4, a coalition of opposition groups led predominately by Islamist militant groups conducted an operation in the Latakia countryside in which some of the groups killed at least 190 civilians, including 57 women, at least 18 children, and 14 elderly men. Many of them were summarily executed. Armed opposition groups have been implicated in other indiscriminate attacks against the civilian population, including car bombings and mortar attacks on government-held civilian areas inside Syria as well as cross-border strikes on Shia villages in Lebanon.

Armed opposition groups fighting in Syria are also using children for combat and other military purposes, and have used schools as military bases, barracks, detention centers, and sniper posts, turning places of learning into military targets and putting students at risk.

Displacement Crisis

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that 4.25 million Syrians are internally displaced. In 2013, humanitarian aid agencies experienced significant challenges in getting assistance to the displaced and affected civilian population within Syria because of sieges imposed by both government and opposition fighters, the government’s continuing refusal to allow assistance to come in across the border, and armed opposition groups’ failure to guarantee security for humanitarian workers.

Attacks on healthcare workers and facilities have significantly eroded the country’s ability to protect the right to health: 32 of the country’s 88 public hospitals have closed and government forces have detained, tortured, and killed hundreds of health workers and patients, and have deliberately attacked vehicles carrying patients and supplies. A recent report of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) concluded that “the denial of medical care as a weapon of war is a distinct and chilling reality of the war in Syria.”

As of November 18, 2013, 2.23 million Syrians had registered or were pending registration as refugees with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the vast of majority of them in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, and Egypt. In 2013 Iraq, Jordan, and Turkey denied entry to tens of thousands of Syrians, either by limiting daily numbers and the profile of those who could cross or by closing border crossings entirely and only sporadically allowing a limited number to cross. Syrians stranded as a result lived in poor conditions and were at risk of attacks by government forces.

All four neighboring countries accepting Syrian refugees have denied Syrians secure legal status. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that Israel would prevent “waves of refugees” from fleeing Syria to the occupied Golan Heights.

On January 13, 2013, Egyptian airport officials deported two Syrians back to Syria, in violation of Egypt’s non-refoulement obligations, and, on July 8, without warning, the Egyptian government changed its entry policy for Syrians by requiring them to obtain a visa and security clearance beforehand. On the same day, Egypt denied entry to 276 people arriving from Syria, including a plane forced to fly back to Syria. On July 19 and 20, Egyptian security forces arrested dozens of Syrian men and some boys at checkpoints on main roads in Cairo, many arbitrarily. The authorities deported at least 24 of them, including 7 boys, to neighboring countries.

Palestinians from Syria have faced additional obstacles. Since March, Jordan has routinely denied entry to Palestinian refugees from Syria. Egypt has also restricted entry to Palestinians from Syria starting in January.  The Lebanese government also began on August 6 to bar most Palestinians from Syria from entering.