Ten terrible years. Violations of human rights and humanitarian law during the war in Syria
The first report of Russian human rights defenders. Press conference April 2, 12:00, online
Russian human rights defenders present the first report on the armed conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic (SAR), which led to one of the largest humanitarian disasters of our time. The report documented violations of human rights and humanitarian law by various parties to the conflict over the 10 years of war, including the Syrian government, armed opposition groups, terrorist organizations, the Russian armed forces and the international coalition led by the United States. It reveals the unprecedented scale of violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The report was prepared by the Memorial Human Rights Center (HRC), the Civic Assistance Committee, Alexander Gorbachev, lawyer of the human rights organization Soldiers’ Mothers of St. Petersburg, and the Youth Human Rights Movement (YHRM, announced the termination of its activities as a network in 2020).
The authors of the report analyzed the main stages and key episodes of the Syrian war, described the gross violations of human rights – arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances of people, torture and inhuman abuse in prisons, extrajudicial executions, bombing with the use of indiscriminate weapons and prohibited types of weapons. They talked about the use of blockades, starvation, sexual violence and medical denial as methods of warfare.
The research is based on over 150 interviews with witnesses and victims. Given the lack of access to the territory of the SAR, the authors conducted interviews with Syrians who fled the war in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Russia. Human rights defenders support eyewitness accounts with materials from various UN agencies and international non-governmental organizations, Syrian human rights defenders and experts.
The report aims to fill a vacuum of information about events in Syria for Russian society through the stories of the civilian population hit by the war. After Russia’s official entry into the Syrian conflict in 2015, it claimed thousands of lives of peaceful Syrians, destroyed dozens of cities and villages, maimed thousands of children and turned hundreds of thousands of families into refugees.
“The situation with the conflict in Syria, including with human rights, has remained virtually unnoticed by Russian society. Meanwhile, this is one of the most tragic pages in the history of mankind in recent decades. More than 20 million people were affected by the war, the number of deaths and wounded is incalculable, and the brutality of people has exceeded all possible limits of the modern understanding of humanism, ”the authors of the report note.
The report will be presented at a press conference on April 2, at 12:00. The press conference will be held online, in Russian, with simultaneous translation into English and Arabic.
Speakers:
- Svetlana Gannushkina, member of the Council of Memorial HRC, Chairperson of the Civic Assistance Committee and head of the Migration and Law program at Memorial HRC
- Oleg Orlov, member of the Council of Memorial HRC, head of the Hot Spots program at Memorial HRC
- Ekaterina Sokiryanskaya, member of Memorial Human Rights Center
- Victoria Gromova, ex-member of the coordinating council of the Youth Human Rights Movement
- Alexander Gorbachev, lawyer, Soldiers’ Mothers of St. Petersburg
Moderator:
Tanya Lokshina, Deputy Director for Europe and Central Asia of the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch
The press conference will be broadcasted on the YouTube channel of Memorial Human Rights Center.
