Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 2:53 pm Post subject: Syria's use of rape to terrorise people
Zaynab, 16, comes from the Khalidiya neighborhood of Homs, Syria. An honor student, Zaynab stopped attending classes after soldiers kidnapped, raped, and killed some of her schoolmates in January, she told the photographer. She’s currently in Lebanon.(Matilde Gattoni) The ultimate assault: Charting Syria’s use of rape to terrorize its people
Lauren Wolfe
July 11, 2012
womenundersiegeproject.org
A woman swathed in black squares her shoulders and calmly looks into a camera. She holds a Quran. Only a sliver of her face—her eyeglasses—shows. “What happened to me hasn’t happened to anyone, or if it has affected anyone else I do not know,” she says. “But I will speak and let all the people know what [Syrian leader] Bashar al-Assad and his men are doing.” Over the next four minutes, her breathing grows labored and her voice breaks as she describes how, in May 2011, five men wearing black entered her home on the outskirts of Homs and raped her. “This is my message to the world,” she says. “Let all the world hear what is happening to us. And I might not be the first one nor the last who was treated in this way.”
The still-unidentified woman posted the video to YouTube on February 11, 2012. It is one of the earliest reports on our live, crowd-sourced map of sexualized violence in Syria. The Women’s Media Center project Women Under Siege has been collecting reports out of Syria for three months, during which time we’ve seen many stories similar to this, in which multiple attackers, usually government forces, are said to gang rape a woman in her home. We have also mapped stories at the extreme edge of nightmares; of teenage girls given shots that immobilize them while their genitals were burned or filled with mice. Government forces and others appear to be carrying out appalling sexualized attacks against women, men, and children in Syria as the conflict there continues. Although we are unable to independently confirm these stories—Syria is simply too dangerous, and our research staff too small—they are consistent both internally and within the news and NGO reports telling similar stories from the Syrian conflict.
To step back from the red dots on our map and try to understand the sexualized violence of Syria’s war, our team of doctors, activists, and journalists has taken the 81 stories we’ve gathered so far, from the onset of the conflict in March 2011 through June 2012, and broken them down into 117 separate pieces of data on everything from rape to the consequences of sexualized violence, such as depression, HIV, and pregnancy. Many more victims are included in these reports, but the vagueness of much of the information does not allow us to give an estimate of the total number. For example, one report tells of an incident in which the Syrian army allegedly raped 36 women while another speaks of a doctor who is treating some of the “2,000 girls and women raped throughout Syria.” Our data, though largely anecdotal, gives us a sense of the scope and impact of sexualized violence in Syria. It appears to be widespread, not limited to any particular city, and often involves rape.
“The data we have so far suggest sexualized violence is being used as a tool of war, although possibly haphazardly and not necessarily as an organized strategy,” said Dr. Karestan Koenen, associate professor of epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and the lead epidemiologist on the mapping project. “These reports indicate that post-conflict intervention will need to address the consequences of sexualized violence for victims.”
Government perpetrators have committed the majority of the attacks we’ve been able to track: 61 percent, including attacks against men and women, with another 6 percent carried out by government and shabiha forces together. These soldiers or officers have allegedly carried out 58 percent of rapes against women; shabiha (plainclothes militia) attackers 14 percent; government and shabiha working together 5 percent; and another or unknown attacker 26 percent. In 42 percent of the incidents of sexualized violence against women that we found, the victims were allegedly attacked by multiple people at once, suggesting a disturbingly high rate of gang rape.
There are well-documented challenges and limitations when it comes to studying sexualized violence in conflict, and our data is not meant to represent the Syrian conflict in its entirety. All of our reports come second- or third-hand, and can’t be independently confirmed. Still, the data provides a small but critical window into Syria’s ongoing violence.
“These new data drawn from reports of sexualized violence crimes in the Syria conflict give us an important initial snapshot of the scale and scope of this horror,” said Susannah Sirkin, deputy director of Physicians for Human Rights, which conducts research and advocacy related to rape in armed conflict.
“The fact that a large portion of the alleged crimes involved multiple attackers indicates possible coordinated, orchestrated, or systematic violence without restraints on the behavior of government and other forces,” Sirkin said. In other words, either Syrian leaders appear to be instructing soldiers to violate women, or the Syrian armed forces have descended into such a Lord of the Flies-style chaos that rape is becoming more routine.
Of the 117 reports, 80 percent of them include female victims, with ages ranging from 7 to 46. Of those, 89 percent reported rape; 6 percent reported groping; 6 percent include sexual assault without penetration; and 11 percent of reports include detention that appears to have been for the purposes of sexualized violence or enslavement for a period of longer than 24 hours. It’s difficult to know intent, but some soldiers have described being ordered to detain women to rape them. We’re keeping an eye out for similarities to Bosnia’s infamous “rape houses,” such as this one in Foča.
Syrian women are suffering more than just sexualized violence itself, with 20 percent of reports leading to the victim’s death, 10 percent to anxiety and/or depression, and 5 percent to pregnancy. “Death” means that women were found dead with signs of sexual assault or they were raped and then killed in front of witnesses, as in this report in which a mother describes watching her three daughters stripped, raped, and murdered by knife-wielding security forces. “You could only hear the screams and the cries of the little ones asking for help, but this did not make them show any mercy,” she recalled.
So far, we’ve found 24 incidents involving men and boys between the ages of 11 and 56 who have also reported sexualized violence as a consequence of the Syrian conflict. Thirty-three percent of reports with male victims allege rape and 38 percent include sexual assault without penetration. Almost 17 percent include multiple attackers. In all but one case, the perpetrators of sexual violence against men were reportedly members of government forces. This is likely due to the fact that most—75 percent—of the reported sexual torture has occurred in detention facilities, staffed and run by the government, where rape and sexual assault appear to be used as a tool of torture. The other 25 percent of reports do not specify the exact location, in many cases because the attack was in the victim’s home—in a number of these, the male victim is forced to watch as his wife or daughter is raped.
“The fact that about a fifth of the reports involve male victims also points to unbridled terror, given the enormous stigma and silence that typically surrounds mass rape of men,” said Sirkin.
The one city that has produced the most reports is Homs, the long-suffering center of protest, with 37 percent of incidents. Surprisingly, the second-most frequent source of the reports is Damascus, the supposedly quiet capital city, with 12 percent of reports.
Our numbers tell us that there is a potentially tremendous human rights crisis unfolding for women, men, and children in Syria. Behind each number though, is a life—a family, or even a whole community—now potentially destroyed by rape and sexualized torture.
When a country's air force drops bombs on civilian targets there can be no justification - let alone on its own population.
If, in future, this is all shown to be lies then I will acknowledge that, while still being in the position of putting civilians before governments and their thugs at every opportunity.
Investigators detail rights abuses in Syria
AFP
17th September 2012
Investigators have announced a list of Syrians suspected of war crimes. After his trip to Syria over the weekend, international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is in Egypt for talks with Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi.
The UN Independent Commission of Inquiry, led by Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, announced "a formidable and extraordinary body of evidence" pointing toward war crimes and rights abuses in Syria that could be used against suspects should the situation arrive in the International Criminal Court. "Gross violations of human rights have grown in number, in pace and in scale," Pinheiro told diplomats in Geneva on Monday.
The investigators also announced an "increasing and alarming presence" of Islamist militants in Syria, some joining the rebels and others operating independently. Their presence tends to radicalize the rebels who have also committeed crimes, according to investigators.
After meeting with President Bashar Assad in Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN-Arab League joint special envoy, warned that the worsening conflict threatens the region and the world at large. In Cairo on Monday, Brahimi is expected to attend a meeting of foreign ministers of a Syria "contact group" of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claims the conflict has killed more than 27,000 people. The United Nations puts the figure at 20,000.
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Almost as many have been killed now as Assad's father murdered in the early 80s. Isn't that quaint?
Managing the Collapse of the Assad Regime
Ausama Monajed (@monajed)
huffingtonpost.com
17/09/2012
Analysts of the civil war in Syria have long held that Bashar al-Assad will not lose a critical mass of support from his Alawite clan as long as they fear for their safety at the hands of Syria's Sunni majority. This is true, but it is a problem that extends beyond just the Alawites to all of the sectarian mosaic that is Syria. The Free Syrian Army (FSA), the mostly Sunni umbrella group of forces fighting the Assad regime, needs to make clear that the Syria they are fighting for is inclusive of all Syrians. Inclusiveness starts with establishing a clear chain of command for the FSA. The status quo - a loose patchwork of officers with overlapping purviews - is untenable.
The FSA should begin by consolidating its leadership under one commanding general. This would not only address foreign frustrations of not having a central point of contact with the FSA but would also make transferring funds and arms much easier. Moreover, it would increase accountability should outside arms find their way into the hands of extremist groups, who may later use these arms against Western interests, similar to the recent attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi which resulted in the tragic death of four Americans, including the Ambassador. United States Defence Secretary Leon Panetta testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee last March that "there has been no single unifying military alternative that can be recognised, appointed, or contacted" in the Syrian opposition. A centralised command with clear leadership for the FSA would close this gap and facilitate greater cooperation with Turkey, Gulf countries, and the West. It would also help the FSA prioritise its operations during the political transition in Syria, from locking down Assad's cache of chemical weapons to securing the country's volatile borders.
The Free Syrian Army should name Christians and Alawites to top posts as soon as it appoints a commanding officer. Diversifying the FSA would be tangible evidence to Syrians and the outside world that the rebel army is committed to inclusiveness. This would not be diversity for diversity's sake, as is often the case with neighbouring Lebanon's quota system, but a real effort to forge cooperation between the Sunni majority and the Christian and Alawite minorities who feel vulnerable to post-Assad disorder.
Creating a central channel for funds and arms to the FSA goes hand-in-hand with creating a centralised leadership. The problem is not a lack of willingness from international donors to write a check, but to whom to make the check. While a regional donor with deep pockets like Saudi Arabia can find a way of getting money to the FSA through back channels, this manoeuvring is not possible for most other supporters. The central command of the FSA should manage donations and other assistance and put it to the best possible use on the battlefield. It is a matter of merging political activism outside of Syria with the FSA's operations inside the country.
The FSA's problem is one of perception as well as policy. Yes, it is a fragmented collection of rebel groups that would benefit from a more centralised leadership, but it also has an international image problem. The FSA has been painted as a rag-tag group difficult to support because of its poor coordination and lack of leadership. As with the Libyan rebels who ultimately deposed Qaddafi, there has been much media speculation about potential Al Qaeda infiltration of the Free Syrian Army. These worries, despite being overplayed, need to be laid to rest with a strong re-branding of the FSA once it has centralised its chain of command. There is no shortage of global support for the heroism the FSA has shown on the battlefield, but this support weakens when doubts about the FSA's political intentions creep in, due to conflicting information.
Just as the domestic situation in Syria hinges on the loyalty of the Alawites, so does the support of Assad's main ally, Russia. Moscow's position that ousting Assad violates Syrian sovereignty is based on the strained logic that Alawite support for the dictator somehow legitimises his grip on power. Never mind the fact that it is out of an instinct for self-preservation, not genuine support, that Alawites (who are about 11% of the population) have not abandoned Assad. A significant tide of Alawite defections would make the Russian position unsustainable. Without a single constituency in Syria to draw strength from, Assad would be of limited use to Russia as a client. With Russian obstruction at the UN Security Council no more, the Chinese would be unwilling to be the only dissenting vote for humanitarian intervention in Syria.
Nearly as crucial as getting Russia to pull the rug from under Assad will be confining Iran to the sidelines during the political transition. Tehran's sway over Assad - Iran runs a multi-million-dollar weapons trade with Syria - makes any changes in Iranian policy towards Syria very challenging. Over the past few weeks, Iran has sent hundreds of foot soldiers and members of its Revolutionary Guard Corps to help Assad deal with a shortage of military personnel. Iran is now actively engaged in the conflict and will need to be engaged in resolving it. Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi recently suggested including the Iranians in a negotiations to end to conflict. Yet despite offering its Revolutionary Guard to Assad, the Iranians may consider the Syrian dictator's days to be numbered and be interested in damage control - in brokering a ceasefire so as to preserve as much of the Iranian patronage network in Syria as possible. The key will be to keep Iran at arm's length during the political transition so as to draw the new Syria away from Tehran's orbit.
Flash back to the present, to what needs to happen for a political transition in Syria to occur. The Free Syrian Army must focus on what it can change, namely its organisational structure and how it connects with its international and domestic supporters. This is as important as any move the FSA makes on the battlefield. As the ancient Greek poet Euripides wrote of organizational efficiency, "Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head."
The confidence built within the FSA's ranks will spread outward and invigorate the political opposition based in Turkey. Donors in the Gulf and in the West will see better bang for their buck and double down on their commitments to oust Assad. Making the Free Syrian Army a more efficient and disciplined body, one inclusive of Alawites and Christians, can be a guardian of political reform in the new Syria.
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Pragmatism that works for the people of Syria is the only answer.
PLO: 18 Palestinians killed in Damascus by Syrian troops
Ma'an news
20th September 2012
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- At least 18 Palestinians were killed on Thursday and their bodies displayed publicly in Damascus, PLO officials in the capital's largest refugee camp said. The PLO office in Yarmouk said the Syrian regime "committed a massacre" against Palestinians in the camp. Bodies were found mutilated and charred, it said.
PLO secretary-general Yasser Abed Rabbo denounced the killings. "We reject any justification or allegations invoked by the Syrian regime army about this massacre which includes torture, killing, and assassination," Abed Rabbo said. "Moreover, such types of crimes need to be condemned internationally. Syria faces unprecedented massacres against Syrian people as well as Palestinians," he said.
Thursday's killings were the latest in a string of attacks targeting Palestinians. At least 10 refugees were killed in the Yarmouk a day earlier, activists in the camp reported. An activist in Yarmouk, where rebels have been hiding out in recent days, said tanks and soldiers had sealed all the entrances. Hundreds of soldiers were searching the area on foot and on trucks mounted with heavy machine guns.
"We are trapped here. Only children and older men or women can leave. Young men, who could be rebels or activists, and even young women, who could also be activists, are stuck inside," an activist called Abu Salam told Reuters on Skype. "We are hiding in our homes. I am afraid to leave the house so I am sitting here waiting to see if they reach my street, if I will be arrested or shot dead," he said.
He said at least three people, two men and a young women, were shot dead when soldiers saw them running out of a park on Thursday morning. Another five rebels found hiding out in the area were executed, he said. The campaign is the latest step in an effort by state forces to stamp out a presence in the Syrian capital of insurgents who are fighting to topple President Bashar Assad.
A resident who toured Yarmouk a day earlier said rebel fighters, who have been flushed out of many surrounding districts, had pulled into a southern section of the district and come under intense army bombardment overnight.
Activists and witnesses who spoke to Reuters say that many parts of the districts in Damascus's southern outskirts, where insurgents have been trying to maintain a foothold, have been reduced to rubble. They said entire buildings had collapsed and the stench of decaying bodies filled the streets. "We are too afraid to go get them because security forces are there and will ask why we are coming for these people," said Abu Salam.
Yarmouk is an unofficial camp for Palestinian refugees. The densely populated, impoverished district in southern Damascus is packed with concrete buildings. Syrian state television said 100 people had been arrested in Yarmouk, and said its forces searching another nearby district were "raiding terrorists dens" and had killed several people inside them.
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