The Russian regime is claiming that Russia intervened in Syria to protect the Syrian people from the terrors of the extreme group ISIS. From our perspective, the Syrian people welcomes anyone who would help get rid of extremist groups with open arms. That, however, should be through practical and actual means and not merely a pretext to justify and mitigate a military interference as we haven’t ever touched on any serious methods to protect the Syrian people from extremist groups whether by Russian forces or by the international coalition forces. All what have been done is a military action that lacks a popular approval firstly, and secondly this military action has failed to protect the Syrian civilians from the savagery of the Syrian regime which is the primary base and justification for the existence of such extremist groups.

A remarkably important point that must be noted is that ISIS emerged in Syria on 9 April 2013, while Russian forces entered Syria on 30 September 2015; two and a half years after ISIS. Nonetheless, Russian forces have killed more civilians than ISIS has according to the most recent report by SNHR: “Russia’s Red Square is Tainted with Syrian Blood” which was published on 16 August 2016 and according to 14 others reports on the violations that have been perpetrated by Russian forces since its involvement begun.
Russian forces have killed no less than 2704 civilians including 746 children and 514 women between 30 September 2015, the day when Russia entered the Syrian conflict, and the end of July 2016. Among the victims were:
Medics: 28 medics including eight women
Media activists: 10 media activists
All of these numbers and statistics are recorded with names, place and date of death, way of killing, and other details.
In contrast, ISIS has killed no less than 2686 civilians including 368 children and 323 women between 9 April 2013, the day when ISIS was established, and the end of July 2016. Among the victims were:
Medics: 34 medics including four female doctors and 11 female nurses.
Media activists: 57 media activists including foreign journalists and photographers.

The Russian state claims to fight terrorism, so it is might be difficult to comprehend that what it is doing is a systematic state terrorism which possess material and logistic sources that are far superior to the extremist groups who might have eclipsed the Syrian and Russian regime had they possessed similar sources. However, we are only concerned with describing reality: The Russian regime has terrorized and massacred the Syrian people and surpassed the extremist group ISIS. We have to be brave enough to acknowledge this truth even though it might be uneasy to accuse states of terrorism as they are preserved as an institutional body in the general mind and they supposedly must protect people from terrorism.
The Syrian people is the victim of the terrorism of both medieval groups and inhumane states, and it is preserved and classified by the rest of the world on religious and ethnic basis rather than through an equal humanitarian perspective. It doesn’t matter how many civilians you kill but who these civilians are.
The states that are allying with Russia must immediately take into consideration these statistics. We have said over and over that the Syrian people sees Russia as a murderer enemy. Therefore, it is impossible for Russia to contribute impartially to any form of solution as long as it is insisting on siding with the Syrian regime that is accused of perpetrating tens of thousands of crimes against humanity and war crimes against the Syrian people.

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SNHR documented the killing of 2236 children by the main conflict parties in Syria since 1 January 2015 and up till 31 August 2015.
Their death toll is detailed as follows:
– The Syrian government killed 1804 children. It is responsible for killing 82% of children among their total death toll.
– Extremist Islamic Groups, detailed as follows:
i- ISIL killed 104
ii- An-Nusra Front killed 11
– Armed Opposition Forces killed 175
– International Coalition Forces killed 58
– PYD Kurd self management forces killed 21 children
– Unidentified Groups killed 63 children

SNHR issued a number of reports and studies about different kinds of violations committed by different conflict parties against Syrians. Undoubtedly, the children and refugees crises are by far the worst kind of suffering. The Syrian government is the main responsible party for these violations since it tried to brutally suppress the uprising. Nonetheless, the International community failed to protect Syrian citizens and their children from the government’s oppression. Logically, the refugee’s crisis cannot be solved without resolving the Syrian crisis; therefore, any more delay will automatically affect Syrian children. The crisis in Syria is purely humanitarian, even if it is being made to look as a geo-political crisis.
SNHR appeals to the international community to fulfill their duties and implement the belated UNSC resolutions, which is the bare minimum of what can be done to ease and resolve the crisis. Syrian children in Eastern Ghouta, Daraya, Damascus suburbs and Al Waer Neighborhood in Homs are still suffering even though UNSC resolutions 2139 and 2165 were issued and which stated that humanitarian assistance has to be delivered to these regions. Children are still dying because of hunger, cold weather, bullets and rockets.

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Government forces killed no less than 121 victims in Douma city alone since the beginning of the indiscriminate killing campaign on 5 February. The victims are divided as follows:
Civilians: 101 victims including 19 children and 20 women
Rebels: 20 rebels
These statistics indicate that there is a systematic policy to kill civilians as the percentage of civilian victims amounted to 83% of the total number of victims while the percentage of rebel victims is 17%.. Also, the percentage of women and children victims is 32% which is a notably high percentage that is unprecedented even in World War II.

The crime of extrajudicial killing can be classified as a crime against humanity, and most of the crimes deliberately targeted civilian residents.
SNHR urges Mr. de Mistura to visit, along with an investigation team, Eastern Ghouta, which is only 10 minutes away from the capital Damascus, to see the catastrophes which the barbarian attacks and siege have caused

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SNHR keeps a comprehensive archive of casualties. It has been keen since the beginning of the Syrian Revolution on documenting and keeping record of all names, photos and videos of casualties in different Syrian governorates through its members throughout Syria.
 
SNHR adopts three main criteria and a standard mechanism for daily documentation of casualties:

1. Statistics published by SNHR are always accompanied by supporting documents including specific and accurate details for each one of the documented cases. These documents are provided for all concerned bodies. It is precisely for that reason that many international organizations around the world have come to rely on SNHR as a main source of information and periodically request updated lists.
 
2. SNHR is strictly concerned with the documentation of civilian casualties because it is extremely difficult to document military casualties particularly among the ranks loyal to the Syrian government be it in the army, secret police or security forces. This has been the case because the Syrian authorities have refused to grant SNHR authorization to work on their territories. Further, some of our field staff have been arrested. SNHR has no links to the Syrian government. On occasion, we have been able to document some of the casualties among the ranks of the Free Syrian Army by contacting their friends and families. Most of those FSA casualties are civilians who joined its ranks.
 
3. SNHR undertakes documenting most of the massacres committed by the army, security forces and Shabiha militias against civilians. This is the most challenging and complicated task we undertake. Based our documentation of the massacres and the number of casualties in each of them the total number of casualties is documented accurately and objectively.

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A statement from the Syrian Network for Human Rights: the number of civilians killed in Syria exceeds the death toll of the Libyan revolution.
A statistic covering the time period of 18/3/2011 to 31/8/2012
The civilian death toll of the Syrian revolution has reached a total of 25,860 deaths. The Syrian Network for Human Rights cannot document deaths on both armed sides (FSA and Syrian Army) due to the regime not allowing the network to work on Syria territory. It is only In rare cases that the network is able to document deaths on the sides of the Syrian Army of the Free Syrian Army.

Total death toll: 25869
Children: 1822
Female children: 558
Male children: 1284
Women: 1918
Those detained then tortured to death: 804
*Important note: In official wars, it is expected that women and children makeup no more than 2% of the death toll. However, in the case of the Syrian regime, the network calculated:
7% of the victims in Syria are women and children

This means that the Syrian regime exceeded 3x the expected 2%. This phenomenon testifies to the Syrian regime’s systematic shelling and killing of civilians. The civilians of Syria have every right to be protected by the international community and human rights organizations. However, no bit of protection has reached the Syrian people nor did the killing stop for a moment.

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It is not uncommon for an arbitrarily-arrested detainee at the Syrian regime detention centers to become a forcibly-disappeared person (according to the international law, enforced-disappearance occurs when state authorities deprive a person of their freedom, and then refuse to acknowledge their fate or whereabouts, provided that a specified period of time has passed since the date of their arrest. We specify this period of time at 40 days in our methodology.) Syrian regime practices enforced-disappearance acts systematically against the detainees in its prisons. There are serious concerns about the fate of no less than 73,000 forcibly-disappeared persons according to SNHR archives. Most of those detainees have been imprisoned for years.
 
Osama Khaled al Habbali, from Masaken al Mu’alimeen neighborhood, al Khaldiya, Homs city, born in 1988, went into the literary branch in high school. Osama was one of the most prominent media activists in Homs governorate, and he was also active in the medical and relief fields. His family told us that Syrian regime forces arrested him on August 18, 2012, as he was coming back from Lebanon where he was received treatment for a past injury he sustained while he was covering developments in Homs. At first, Osama was being kept at the Military Security branch in Homs, before he was transferred to Sydnaya Military Prison, where he was tried before the military field-court.
 

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