Syria
Widespread violations of human rights continued in Syria in 2010. The state of emergency, in place since 1963,
provides a legal basis for emergency laws used to justify violations of freedom
of expression and association and other civil and political rights, enforced
disappearance, prisoner abuse, travel bans, arbitrary arrest and unfair
trials. Human rights defenders are
vulnerable to harassment, including demands from the security services not to
associate with foreign diplomats monitoring the human rights situation in
Syria. The Syrian government justifies
the continuing use of the emergency law by the ongoing “state of war” between
Syria and Israel. The sentencing of two
high profile human rights defenders in July in the face of national and EU
calls for their release, and the ongoing detention of 19-year-old female
blogger Tal al-Mallouhi, were stark reminders of the regime’s approach to human
rights. Syrians actively practise
self-censorship at all levels. This
situation has not deterred Syria from presenting itself as a suitable candidate
for election to the UN Human Rights Council.
The UK raised human rights with the Syrian government regularly and at
all levels throughout 2010, including when Parliamentary Under-Secretary of
State Alistair Burt met Foreign Minister Muallem in July. The UK was the first country to issue a
national statement on the sentencing of human rights defender Mohannad
al-Hassani in July and on his subsequent mistreatment in prison in November,
prompting international press coverage and statements from other countries. UK calls for action at the EU working group
on human rights in Syria resulted in EU démarches
and declarations criticising the regime’s human rights record.
The outlook for human rights in Syria is set to deteriorate gradually
in 2011. Continued condemnation by the
international community of human rights abuses is unlikely to have much impact
on the actions taken by the Syrian authorities.
Concern about social unrest by Syrian citizens over the bleak domestic
economic outlook may also see the authorities exert more control over the
media, NGOs and associations through the emergency law, at the expense of
citizens’ human rights. The authorities
may set in place a series of reforms in domestic political structures ahead of
the parliamentary elections in April, but they are unlikely to be little more
than cosmetic.
Elections
Political reform remained frozen in 2010. Parliamentary elections are held every four
years and are due in April 2011. They
will be neither free nor fair. A
presidential referendum is held every seven years; the next will be in
2014. Though not formally a single-party
state, all political life remains under Baath Party control through a political
“front” of 11 parties, known as the National Progressive Front. This stifles, rather than enables, political
pluralism. In January 2007 President
Assad decreed a series of largely cosmetic electoral reforms ahead of the April
parliamentary elections, a May presidential referendum, and August municipal
elections. In early 2009 he undertook to
put political liberalisation back on the agenda. He gave as examples expanding political
participation, creating a second chamber of parliament – an elected senate with
a legislative role to give more space to the opposition; further liberalising
the political media and internet to promote dialogue; and (again) enacting a
law regulating political parties. No
timeframe was given for these reforms, although President Assad has said that
they would be implemented gradually and at Syria’s own pace. None had been introduced by the end of 2010.
Access to
justice
Although the Syrian constitution provides
for the independence of the judicial authority, the judicial system remained
under the control of the regime and security services. Corruption and political interference
continued to hinder the independence of the judicial authority. Military courts and the Supreme State
Security Court (SSSC), created under the emergency law of 1963, continued to
co-exist with the normal judicial system.
Our diplomats regularly observed trials at the SSSC, until December when
the Syrian authorities withdrew permission for all diplomats to attend trials,
without explanation. The Syrian
authorities continued to refuse diplomats access to their military courts.
Individuals accused of crimes in Syria
continued to be denied access to a fair judicial process. We observed in the SSSC that
defendants were given little time to defend themselves. Prisoners were not allowed access to their
lawyers before trial and their lawyers were not allowed to speak for them in
court.
Rule of
law
The rule of law in Syria remained weak in
2010. Under the emergency law, civilians
are detained and tried by military courts for offences such as disturbance of
public order, creation of an illegal organisation or, insulting or slandering
of the president and governmental institutions.
The immunity of judges is not guaranteed
under Syrian law and they can be easily removed from their postings or
impeached. The Syrian Bar Association is
also controlled by the authorities. This
was clear when prominent Syrian lawyer and human rights defender Mohannad al
Hassani was stripped of his credentials by the president of the Syrian Bar
Association when he was sentenced in July.
Death
penalty
The Syrian criminal code allows for
execution by hanging as the maximum penalty for a number of crimes, including
murder, grave sexual offences, drug crimes, high treason and membership of the
Muslim Brotherhood. There was evidence
that at least seven men were sentenced to death after being convicted of murder
in 2010. The authorities rarely disclose
information about executions.
Torture
and other ill treatment
Torture was used by law enforcement and
investigative officials in Syria in 2010.
For the first time since signing the UN Convention against Torture in
2004, Syria submitted a report to the UN Committee against Torture. This was subsequently discussed by the committee
in May. In its concluding observations,
the committee was “deeply concerned about numerous, ongoing and consistent
allegations concerning the routine use of torture by law enforcement and
investigative officials”. The committee
detailed allegations of physical and psychological torture and other ill
treatment widely applied to suspects under interrogation, including political
opponents, by the police and the security services. The committee also expressed its concern at
credible reports of a number of deaths in custody and restrictions on forensic
examination into these cases.
Prisons and detention issues
Arbitrary detentions continued to be used as
a mechanism of control by the regime throughout 2010. The use of all-encompassing charges such as "weakening national
sentiment" and "spreading
false news" to justify detention are a constant source of fear
for human rights defenders and civil society activists. Their vague interpretation allowed the
security services to detain, question and arrest any Syrian, including the two prominent Syrian human rights defenders, Muhannad
al Hassani and Haitham al Maleh. At least 12 Syrian bloggers were detained
under these charges in 2010. We also
received regular reports of continuing arbitrary arrests among the minority
Kurdish community. Although no accurate figures exist for the
number of political prisoners in Syria, reports vary from 1,000 to 3,000 held
in detention.
According to 2010 reports issued by international human rights NGOs,
including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, prisoners are held
incommunicado by the Syrian authorities for weeks, months and even years, and
continue to be abused and tortured in order to extract confessions. Prison conditions are bad, with prisoners
obliged to sleep on concrete in crowded, dirty cells and to pay for food,
bedding and clothing. Our observations
of trials at the Supreme State Security Court, where most political and
security cases are tried, saw prisoners arriving at court in a poor state of
mental and physical health and often without knowledge of the charges against
them. International organisations have
no access to prisons or to detention centres.
Family visits in prisons remain limited.
Human
rights defenders
The 12 imprisoned members of the Damascus Declaration for Democratic
National Change were released in 2010 on completion of their sentences. The Damascus Declaration signatories are an
unauthorised coalition of activists established in October 2005, whose leaders
were sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison on 29 October 2008 for “weakening national sentiment”. Their release was marred by the
immediate re-arrest of one of their number, Ali Abdullah, for an opinion piece
he wrote in August 2009 while in prison, criticising the “Mandate of Jurist” in
Shi’a Islam. The EU High Representative
for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European
Commission Catherine Ashton called for his release on 27 July. There has been no response from the Syrian
authorities, and Mr Abdullah remains in jail awaiting trial. Two high-profile human rights lawyers were
also imprisoned in 2010. On 4 July
Muhannad al Hassani, president of the Syrian Organization for Human Rights, and
winner of the 2010 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, was
sentenced to three years for “weakening
national sentiment” and “spreading
false news” after he had reported on legal proceedings before the
State Security Court. On 11 July Haitham
al Maleh, an 80-year-old human rights lawyer and activist, was also sentenced
to three years for “weakening the
national sentiment”. Haitham al
Maleh was in very poor health and was being denied access to hospital treatment
and suitable medication.
Freedom
of expression
Freedom of expression remained severely
restricted in Syria in 2010. Syria
ranked 173 out of 178 countries on the Reporters Without Borders 2010 Press
Freedom Index, falling from 165 in 2009 and 159 in 2008. Although
the Syrian constitution states “every citizen has the right to freely and
openly express his views in words, in writing, and through all other means of
expression…” and “The State guarantees the freedom of the press, of printing,
and publication in accordance with the law”, the emergency law continued to
allow for wide-ranging censorship of newspapers, magazines and other
publications. Further laws continued to
prohibit the “dissemination of false news for the purpose of creating
disorder”, carrying heavy prison sentences.
Almost all of Syria’s print media remains government-owned, all
newspapers are censored before publication and all journalists practise
self-censorship. Foreign journalists are
rarely accredited. The few private
publications are owned by Syrian businessmen with close ties to the ruling
elite. There is only one private
satellite channel broadcasting from inside Syria, owned by President Assad’s
cousin. The Syrian telecommunications
market is the most regulated in the Middle East, with state-owned Syrian
Telecom owning all telecommunications infrastructure and enjoying a monopoly
over wired and wireless services throughout the country.
Online media was almost as heavily restricted in 2010. As blogging and online journalism
increasingly undermined the state’s monopoly over mass communication, the
Syrian government continued actively to crack down on it. The Committee to Protect Journalists named
Syria as the third-worst country in the world to be a blogger, behind Burma and
Iran. Syrian security services continued
to combine old-school tactics, including arbitrary arrests and detention,
unfair trials, prolonged imprisonment, travel bans and harassment, with newer
techniques such as online blocking and monitoring, to try to dissuade online
activists. At least 12 Syrian bloggers
were convicted under the emergency law.
Their imprisonment served a dual purpose; the bloggers were silenced,
and their arrest intimidated others, prompting internet users to engage in
self-censorship. The government also
controlled bloggers and journalists by preventing them from leaving Syria. By the end of 2010, more than 400 activists,
including online journalists, were subjected to travel bans.
Freedom
of religion and belief
Syria is a multi-religious state.
The constitution provides for freedom of religion. While there is no official state religion,
the constitution requires the president to be Muslim and stipulates that
Islamic jurisprudence is the principal source of legislation. The constitution provides for freedom of
faith and religious practice, provided that religious rites do not disturb the
public order. However, the government
restricts full freedom of choice on religious matters. The government continued to prosecute alleged
members of the Muslim Brotherhood or Salafist movements and continued to outlaw
Jehovah's Witnesses. Moreover, the government
continued to monitor the activities of all groups, including religious groups,
and discouraged proselytising, which it deems to be a threat to relations among
religious groups.
There were occasional reports of minor tensions among religious
groups, some of which were attributable to economic rather than religious
rivalries. Muslim converts to
Christianity were sometimes forced to leave their places of residence due to
social pressure.
The Yezidis, a religious minority within the Kurdish community,
continued to suffer religious discrimination.
Their religion is not recognised by the state. Yezidis are registered in Syria as Muslims
and receive Islamic education in state schools.
Women’s
rights
The Syrian constitution grants full equality to women. Syrian
women participate fully in political life, and women held three ministerial
positions and the role of vice president in 2010. There are also many women in judicial,
academic, public and business life.
But Syrian legislation remains discriminatory, especially in family
issues. The nationality law of 1969, the
penal code and the personal status law all contain discriminatory provisions,
for example, with respect to passing on nationality to children and
dispositions related to marriage, polygamy, guardianship, divorce, child
custody, rape, adultery, honour crime, contraception and abortion. Women receive twice the length of sentence
for adultery than men.
In January, a comprehensive anti-trafficking law was issued to provide
victims with protection and redress. An
executive code, awareness raising and capacity building are all still needed
before effective implementation of the anti-trafficking law can take
place. Since 2009, two shelters for
female victims of human trafficking
have been established under the supervision of the Ministry of Social Affairs
and Labour in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration.
Children’s
rights
Children’s rights in Syria presented a mixed
picture in 2010. There is no effective
mechanism by the Syrian state for the protection of children from domestic
violence. In rural areas girls are
sometimes prevented from going to school either because of arranged marriages
at an early age (the minimum age for marriage is 13 for girls) or in order to
make them work. According to the Syrian
government, children between 10 and 14 years of age made up 2% of the labour
force in 2010. Unofficial estimates are
higher at 4–5%. With the increasing
number of Iraqi refugees in Syria, child labour and street children are
becoming increasingly common.
In detention, minors are often held in
groups for unspecified periods of time, and sometimes with adults. Children have been observed being brought
before the courts in chains and being tried as adults.
Minorities
and other discriminated groups
Syria is a multi-ethnic state where different religions and ethnic
groups co-exist. Yet demands for special
protection and minority rights continue to be interpreted by the Syrian
government as threats to the unity of the state, particularly in relation to Syrian
Kurds. A census in 1962 revoked the
nationality of thousands of Syrian Kurds, and today around 300,000 of the 1.7 million
Kurds living in Syria are denied citizenship, being referred to as the
“stateless Kurds”. There
were regular reports of arbitrary arrests, violations of Kurdish property
rights, and deaths of Kurds in military service. The teaching of Kurdish is prohibited and Kurdish
festivals, such as the Nowruz celebrations in March, are disrupted by the
security services.
Homosexuality remains strictly forbidden by the criminal code. The Syrian police regularly clamp down on
suspected meetings for homosexuals and there are no recognised associations to
campaign for or protect LGBT rights.
Other
issues: Human rights groups
A new draft law on civil society was discussed at a conference on
development issues presided over by First Lady Assad in January, but the draft
law had yet to appear by December. Human
rights organisations remain prohibited and travel bans were used extensively to
prevent Syrians from attending international events or conferences. All civil associations have to be cleared
with the security services. Only 13
international NGOs are currently registered in Syria, which work exclusively
with Iraqi refugees. The Syrian
International Academy for Training and Development was closed down in July.
