New York, Sept. 1.─ Based on 480 interviews and a wealth of documentary material relating to violations which took place in the Syrian Arab Republic between 20 January and 15 July 2014, the latest report details the immeasurable suffering of the Syrian people. Fighting has engulfed civilian areas, destroying the barest possibility of normal life. The impact has been particularly grave for women and children, whose most basic rights are being infringed daily.
Describing the conflict in Syria as “outrageous in its disregard for accepted international norms”, Pinheiro and his fellow commissioners have recorded hundreds of atrocities, including scores of massacres, committed by all sides.
Members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) committed torture, murder, acts tantamount to enforced disappearance, and forcible displacement as part of an attack on the civilian population in Aleppo and Ar Raqqah governorates, amounting to crimes against humanity.
In areas controlled by ISIS, in the north and north-east of Syria, the country’s largest and most populous region, executions have become “a common spectacle on Fridays”, the report says. Dozens of executions have been documented, mostly of adult men but also of boys aged between 15 and 17 and two women who were stoned to death. The executions are generally shots to the head at close range or beheadings, often performed in front of crowds, including children. The bodies are frequently displayed for days after on crucifixes.
The report also describes amputations, the lashing of men for smoking, possessing alcohol, trading during payer times and failing to fast during Ramadan, and multiple accounts of women being beaten with sticks for appearing in public with their faces uncovered.
Other non-State armed groups, named in the report, committed massacres and war crimes, including murder, execution without due process, torture, hostage-taking, violations of international humanitarian law tantamount to enforced disappearance, rape and sexual violence, recruiting and using children in hostilities and attacking protected objects ...