Preface:
Civilian casualties have fallen since the early days of the popular uprising in March/ 2011, when the security services of the Syrian regime responded to the peaceful demonstrations with direct live gunfire aimed at killing and wounding. The need to document civilian casualties, arbitrary arrests, and enforced disappearances was my main initial reason for establishing the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) at the beginning of June/ 2011. The documentation of extrajudicial killings was and has remained the most prominent task of the Syrian Network for Human Rights ever since its establishment. This is because murder is the greatest type of abuse, and what applies to extrajudicial killings apply – in one way or another- to other violations, such as; arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearance, torture, indiscriminate bombardment, destruction, forced displacement, and many other violations which we’ve document- ed over the past decade, some of which amount to crimes against humanity.
