ccording to the UN, Syrian armed and security forces may be responsible for: unlawful killing, including of children (mostly boys), medical personnel and hospital patients ("In some particularly grave instances, entire families were executed in their homes"
; torture, including of children (mostly boys, sometimes to death) and hospital patients, and including sexual and psychological torture; arbitrary arrest "on a massive scale"; deployment of tanks and helicopter gunships in densely populated areas; heavy and indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas; collective punishment; enforced disappearances; widescale and systematic destruction and looting of property; the systematic denial, in some areas, of food and water; and the prevention of medical treatment, including to children - in the period since 15 March 2011.[4]:20–4[7]:4–6[8]:2–4[9]:10–20 Amnesty International reported that medical personnel had also been tortured,[10] while the UN said that medical personnel in state hospitals were sometimes complicit in the killing and torture of patients.[9]:11 The execution and torture of children was also documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.[1]:30[11]:31–2[12][13] Most of the serious human rights violations documented by the UN have been committed by the Syrian army and security services as part of military or search operations.[7]:4[8]:1 The pattern of the killing, coupled with interviews with defectors, led the UN to conclude a shoot-to-kill policy was operative.[4]:20[9]:10 The UN mentioned several reports of security forces killing injured victims by putting them into refrigerated cells in hospital morgues.[4]:22
Amnesty International decided to enter the country uninvited in spring 2012 and documented "gross violations of human rights on a massive scale" by the Syrian military and shabiha, "many of which amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes". These were committed against the armed opposition, to punish and intimidate civilian individuals and strongholds perceived to be supporting the opposition, and indiscriminately against individuals who had nothing to do with the opposition. In addition to the crimes listed by the UN above, they noted cases of people being burnt alive; destruction of pharmacies and field hospitals (normal hospitals are out of bounds to those wounded by the military); and that the sometimes lethal torture ("broken bones, missing teeth, deep scars and open wounds from electric shocks, and from severe beatings and lashings with electric cables and other implements" was overwhelmingly directed at men and boys.
The UN reported 10,000 persons arbitrarily detained between mid-March and the late June 2011;[7]:5 a year later that number had more than doubled, though the true number of detainees may have been far higher.[1]:11[11]:12 At the notorious Seidnaya jail, north of Damascus, 2,500 military officers and lesser ranks were being held after they disobeyed orders or attempted desertion.[14] Human Rights Watch documented more than 20 different methods of torture used against detainees, including: prolonged and severe beatings, often with objects such as batons and wires; painful stress positions; electrocution; burning with car battery acid; sexual assault; pulling out fingernails; mock execution; and sexual violence.[11]:18–19 Many were held in disgusting and cruelly overcrowded conditions; many who needed medical assistance were denied it, and some consequently died.[11]:14–17
Human Rights Watch accused the government and Shabiha of using civilians as human shields when they advanced on opposition-held areas.[15] A UN report confirmed this, saying soldiers had used children as young as eight, detaining and killing children afterwards. The UN added the Syrian Government as one of the worst offenders on its annual "list of shame".[16]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_during_the_Syrian_Civil_War
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