The anniversary of Operation Xenios Zeus, on August 4, marks one year of abuses conducted by the Greek police against migrants and asylum seekers in Athens.

Xenios Zeus is an epic-scale sweep operation aiming at cracking down on irregular immigration and crime in Athens. Since the start of the operation, tens of thousands of people presumed to be undocumented migrants have been subjected to abusive stops and searches on the streets, and hours-long detention at police stations. Human Rights Watch documented the use of ethnic profiling and arbitrary deprivation of liberty in the recent report “Unwelcome Guests”.

With its deep economic crisis, and after years of mismanaged migration and asylum policies, anti-migrant sentiment has grown rapidly in Greece. Golden Dawn, a far-right, anti-immigrant party has gained in popularity, making it hard not to see Xenios Zeus as a government effort to win voters back.

Confronted with our report during a BBC interview, Minister of Public Order Dendias rejected and denied our findings, as did other government officials when we met with them in mid-June in Athens.

Officials also insisted that Greece is historically tolerant with a longstanding tradition of hospitality, and that it’s “in the DNA of Greeks not to be racist.”

Our July 2012 report “Hate on the Streets” shows the opposite. Xenophobic violence in Greece has reached alarming proportions, with gangs regularly attacking migrants and asylum seekers in the streets of Athens. Despite some positive steps to improve state response, attackers are rarely arrested and police inaction is the rule.

Xenios Zeus, an operation that stigmatizes migrants and asylum seekers, is a dangerous distraction from the real policing challenges the country faces. The one-year anniversary should be markedby reforms to ensure that all measures to identify irregular migrants fully respect human rights law prohibiting discrimination, including ethnic profiling, and arbitrary deprivation of liberty.

“Unwelcome Guests” Report Link / “Hate of the Streets” Report here.

On July 31, 2013, the government authorized the interior minister to “take all necessary measures” to “confront violence and terrorism” in the sit-ins, but did not elaborate what those measures would be. In dealing with protests, Egypt’s security forces have regularly resorted to excessive use of force, killing at least 137 people in the past month alone.

“To avoid another bloodbath, Egypt’s civilian rulers need to ensure the ongoing right of protesters to assemble peacefully, and seek alternatives to a forcible dispersal of the crowds,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The police’s persistent record of excessive use of force, leading to dozens of deaths this month, and the density of the sit-ins mean that hundreds of lives could be lost if the sit-in is forcibly dispersed.”

As a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Egyptian authorities are required to protect and ensure the right to assemble peacefully. This means they must facilitate demonstrations and ensure they can take place peacefully.

Any restrictions imposed must be for a legitimate aim, nonarbitrary, and according to law. And any restrictions may not discriminate on grounds such as political belief, and must be necessary and proportionate to the aim pursued. Prohibition of any particular demonstration, including dispersal, must be a last resort. Imposition of restrictions and bans on demonstrations should be subject to appeal before an independent and impartial court.

Under international law, the overall duty to ensure the right to peaceful assembly means that state authorities may not treat an entire demonstration as violent due to the acts of a few participants, Human Rights Watch said. The authorities may not punish peaceful protesters for crimes committed by individual protesters or for possession of unlicensed weapons by some protesters.

Human Rights Watch visited the two main protest sites, in Rab’a al-Adawiya and al-Nahda square, both of which were densely populated with women, children, and men who have been staging a month-long sit-in to protest the removal of President Mohammed Morsy.

Over the past weeks, some residents of the buildings surrounding the sit-in in Rab’a al-Adawiya have filed formal complaints because of their inability to easily access their building entrances. Media reports have circulated claiming some Morsy supporters abused individuals they suspect of being “infiltrators” of the sit-in. Witnesses have reported seeing protesters armed with guns at the Giza sit-in. Human Rights Watch interviewed one man who said he and a group of men grabbed and detained another man under the Nahda stage along with eight other captives, as well as a boy who said protesters at Nahda beat him, subjected him to electric shocks, and cut him with bladed weapons.

The Egyptian authorities are required to take the utmost care in the choice of means and methods employed by its security services when confronting or dispersing a protest. The authorities must ensure that thorough planning takes place before any operation is carried out and then ensure that the operation is carried out in a way that minimizes harm or any risk to life. This planning should include giving advance notice to protesters so they can respond to dispersal requests by the security forces, HRW said.

In a statement to the news media, Ismail Jaber, the Gaza prosecutor general, said on July 25, 2013, that he had ordered the closure of the Gaza offices of the regional broadcaster al-Arabiya and the Ma’an News Agency, a Palestinian outlet, because they had “fabricat[ed] news and diffused false rumors and baseless information, threatening civil peace and harming the Palestinian people and their resistance.” The two outlets had broadcast and published reports implicating Hamas in supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

“If the Gaza authorities think that these news outlets have misrepresented them, it should be easy enough to provide accurate information and debunk their stories, but they shouldn’t just shut down their critics,” said Tom Porteous, deputy program director at Human Rights Watch. “These actions do not square with Gaza authorities’ claims to respect media freedom.”

The prosecutor general closed al-Arabiya’s office “for distributing false news regarding the smear campaign against Hamas and Gaza about what’s happening in Egypt,” Agence France Presse reported on July 25, citing an unnamed Hamas official. Al Resalah, a pro-Hamas newspaper, quoted a Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, as stating that al-Arabiya “aims to distort the image of the Palestinian resistance by means of lying to the Egyptian people that the Palestinians are involved in the turmoil in Egypt.”

Egyptian officials and media have alleged that Hamas fighters helped senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood escape from Egypt’s Wati Natroun prison during the January 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak’s rule.

At about 4:30 p.m. on July 25, police detectives from the General Investigation Department arrived at the offices of al-Arabiya in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City and said that they had an order from the prosecutor general to close the office, that they would arrest anyone entering it, and that no one should remove any of its contents, al-Arabiya staff told Human Rights Watch.

“The detectives didn’t give us a copy of the order,” the bureau chief, Islam Abdul Karim, told Human Rights Watch. “We were surprised, but two days previously Hamas had issued statements against al-Arabiya, so maybe we shouldn’t have been.” He said that police detectives told him the closure order was “temporary” but did not say how long the office would be closed. Al-Arabiya had not yet decided whether to file a legal appeal against the order, he said. “First we will try to give diplomacy a chance,” he said. Eleven people work in the office.

Ma’an News reported that “officials from the Ministry of Information and security forces” closed its Gaza office and questioned its bureau chief there about a July 24 article. The article cited an Israeli news report that six Muslim Brotherhood officials from Egypt had “smuggled themselves into Gaza to plan an uprising against the [Egyptian] military” on behalf of deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsy, the head of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s political party. Ma’an News reported that it had complained to the office of Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh and the Information Ministry.

Police detectives also refused to provide staff of Ma’an News with a copy of the prosecutor general’s closure order, staff told Human Rights Watch. A lawyer for Ma’an News, Shawqi Aissa, told Human Rights Watch that he had not seen the order but hoped to learn more details on July 28 or 29.

Ma’an News quoted an unnamed Hamas official as saying the Gaza government had ordered its closure because it considered that the news agency “deliberately publishes false news reports seeking to incite against Gaza” and was “complicit with Egyptian media outlets in incitement against the Strip and making up lies to harm the image of Palestinian resistance.”

The prosecutor general said the closure orders against al-Arabiya and Ma’an News were “temporary,” but did not specify when the two media offices could reopen.

The prosecutor general also ordered police to close a Gaza media production company, Lens, because it had provided broadcast services to I24 News, a channel based in Israel. Human Rights Watch is investigating whether the closure violated the Gaza government’s pledges to uphold human rights norms.

The New York Times reported that a Lens employee had said the head of the Gaza government’s media office told him on July 25 that Lens was violating a government decision in January to bar Palestinians in Gaza from working with Israeli news organizations.

The Hamas-run Gaza government is not internationally recognized as a state and therefore cannot ratify international human rights treaties, but it has repeatedly pledged to uphold human rights standards, including freedom of the press.

Under human rights law, everyone is ensured the right to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds. Governments may restrict the content of what the media can broadcast or print but only in narrow and clearly prescribed circumstances, for reasons of national security, public order, or public health or morals. The United Nations Human Rights Committee stated in a general comment that restrictions on the right to freedom of expression must be “provided by law,” may only be imposed for a legitimate reason, and must conform to the strict tests of necessity and proportionality.

In the clash near Cairo University, the dead included both local residents and Morsy supporters. Based on visits to hospitals and a morgue and interviews with 15 witnesses, Human Rights Watch identified 11 of the dead, including at least 4 residents of the area and at least 3 participants in a rally and march to support Morsy.

“The deaths on the streets of Egypt over the past several days cry out for an impartial investigation,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The available information indicates that both supporters and opponents of Morsy – and possibly security forces as well – were responsible for needless loss of life.”

Human Rights Watch spoke with six of the people injured in the clashes as well as other witnesses. Supporters of Morsy said that civilians – whom they could not identify but described as “thugs”, or baltagiya – and security forces were responsible for some killings. Residents of the area said that Brotherhood supporters attacked them, and shot and injured a police officer.

Witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch agreed that police were at the scene briefly but did not intervene to stop the bloodshed. Residents of Bein al-Sarayat, the area where the clashes took place, said they called the police and the army, but, as one put it, “No one came.”

The newspaper Al Masry al Youm reported that Health Minister Mohamed Mostafa Hamed said on July 3 that 18 people had died in the violence near the university during the previous night, and that violence across Egypt since June 30 had left 32 people dead.

On the afternoon of July 2, thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters gathered in Nahda Square near Cairo University, in the Giza district of Cairo, for a rally on behalf of Morsy’s presidency. Several Morsy supporters told Human Rights Watch they had come under attack by unidentified “thugs” while walking toward the university from the northeast to attend the rally. The Morsy supporters began marching with others on Ahmed Zewail Street, along the university’s northern edge, toward Tharwat Bridge.

At around 5 p.m., fighting broke out between marchers and people in the buildings on the north side of the street. Several local residents told Human Rights Watch that scuffles began when marchers attacked university students holding up anti-Morsy posters. Violence escalated when residents ran to help the students and were attacked by Morsy supporters, the witnesses said. Two residents showed Human Rights Watch large, fresh wounds on their heads that they said were caused by Morsy supporters wielding clubs and wooden and metal sticks.

Both pro- and anti-Morsy witnesses said they heard gunfire beginning at about 6 p.m. Residents who participated in the clashes acknowledged they armed themselves with stones, rocks, and knives, and Morsy supporters acknowledged that some of them carried guns. Morsy supporters said they came under gunfire from people in buildings on the northern side of Ahmed Zewail street, before reaching Tharwat Bridge, and residents of the area said that gunmen on the roof of a university building on the south side of the street as well as Morsy supporters fired on them. Morsy supporters acknowledged detaining, questioning, and severely beating some men they identified as paid “thugs” who had attacked the march on Ahmed Zewail street.

Exchanges of gunfire intensified at around 10 or 10:30 p.m., witnesses said. Human Rights Watch observed repeated bursts of automatic fire, in addition to other gunfire, at around 11:40 p.m., near the intersection of Cairo University Road and Ahmed Zewail Street. An emergency intake doctor at Um al-Masriyeen hospital in Giza told Human Rights Watch that the majority of gunshot victims who arrived there were injured in the upper body. In cases in which the victims had been shot with live ammunition, the angle of the wound indicated that the shooting had come from above – the tops or upper stories of buildings, the doctor said.

Residents who opposed the pro-Morsy demonstration told Human Rights Watch that they phoned repeatedly for police assistance, but that security forces only arrived after midnight. Videos taken by local journalists that Human Rights Watch viewed show armored vehicles in the area at nighttime, but a resident interviewed in one of the videos said she was not aware of a stabilizing police presence until the following morning at 8 a.m. Residents said that Morsy supporters shot a police officer in the face. One Morsy supporter said he saw members of the Central Security Forces arrive and begin firing automatic weapons at around 11:30 p.m., killing a Morsy supporter.

A July 4 statement from the Interior Ministry said it had formed teams to investigate various events over recent days, arrest all suspects regardless of their affiliations or alignments, and enforce the law on all without discrimination.

On several occasions in the past, including the killing of 42 civilians in Port Said, Human Rights Watch has determined that police used greater lethal force than necessary to protect themselves or others from violence, killing civilians. Both the past excessive use of lethal force, and police failure to minimize casualties during the latest round of violence, indicate the continued and pressing need for security sector reform.

Under international human rights standards applicable to Egypt at all times, law enforcement officials need to take all reasonable steps to protect lives, especially when aware of specific threats. But they can only use intentional lethal force when strictly necessary to protect life.

“Accountability for serious crimes by all parties is key if the transitional government is serious about moving toward an inclusive and democratic Egypt,” Stork said. “Investigations into the awful events at Cairo University, in which Morsy supporters apparently were both attackers and victims, will be a crucial test.”

“The recent statements by the Malian government call into question its political will to end child labor in mining,” said Babatunde Olugboji, deputy program director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities in Mali should publicly renew their commitment to help children leave work in mining and get an education instead.”

Human Rights Watch conducted field research in artisanal gold mines in Kéniéba and Kolondiéba circles in 2011 and interviewed more than 150 people for its report. Children between the ages of 6 and 17 told the organization how they dug pits, worked underground in unstable mines, carried and crushed heavy ore, and used toxic mercury to extract gold. Such work is hazardous and prohibited under international and Malian law.

But at the news conference on April 10, officials from the ministries of Mining, Interior, and Justice questioned whether children present at the mining sites were actually performing labor, and Col. Allaye Diakité also questioned Human Rights Watch methodology, including the origins of photographs it published that show children at work. Human Rights Watch used photographs from both independent professional photographers as well as its own researchers, and said that the photographs support allegations made in its report.

Human Rights Watch is not the only organization to document the issue of child labor in Mali’s gold mines. A recent media report by the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) highlighted the same issue.

Mali’s government has itself previously acknowledged the problem of child labor in artisanal gold mines, and devised a child labor action plan in June 2011 with a view to ending this practice.

In the 665-page report, its23rd annual review of human rights practices around the globe, Human Rights Watch summarizes major issues in more than 90 countries. With regard to events in the Middle East and North Africa known as the Arab Spring, Human Rights Watch said the creation of a rights-respecting state can be painstaking work that requires building effective institutions of governance, establishing independent courts, creating professional police, and resisting the temptation of majorities to disregard human rights and the rule of law. But the difficulty of building democracy does not justify seeking a return to the old order, Human Rights Watch said.

“The uncertainties of freedom are no reason to revert to the enforced predictability of authoritarian rule,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “The path ahead may be treacherous, but the alternative is to consign entire countries to a grim future of oppression.”

The tension between majority rule and respect for rights poses perhaps the greatest challenge for the new governments, Human Rights Watch said. Leaders in the Middle East are naturally eager to exercise their new electoral clout, but they have a duty to govern without sacrificing fundamental freedoms or the rights of minorities, women, and other groups at risk.

Other countries can be supportive both by setting positive examples in their own practices, respecting human rights themselves, and by consistently promoting rights in their relations with the new government and others. Turning a blind eye to repression may be politically convenient but it does enormous damage to the quests for rights-respecting democracies, Human Rights Watch said.

Three additional essays in the World Report address other threats to human rights. One describes the need to regulate business operations around the world, especially in an era of globalization, to protect the rights of workers and people negatively affected by company operations. The second says that in responding to environmental crises, governments and others frequently focus on the harm to nature, neglecting the human rights impact on people in the crisis zone. The third essay highlights how arguments of “tradition” and cultural relativism are used to deny women and minorities human rights that should be universal.

The struggle over Egypt’s constitution, which will probably be the most influential among countries in the region undergoing change, demonstrates the difficulty of protecting human rights, Human Rights Watch said in the report’s introduction. The constitution has some positive elements, including clear prohibitions on torture and arbitrary detention.

But broadly worded and vague provisions on speech, religion, and the family have dangerous implications for women’s rights and the exercise of social freedoms protected under international law. The constitution also reflects a seeming abandonment of efforts to exercise civilian control over the military.

Among the Arab countries that have changed their governments, Libya best illustrates the problem of a weak state, a result of Muammar Gaddafi’s decisions to keep government institutions underdeveloped to discourage challenges to his rule. The problem is particularly acute with respect to the rule of law. Militias dominate many parts of the country and in some places commit serious abuses with impunity. Meanwhile, thousands of people remain in detention, some held by the government and others by militias, with little immediate prospect of being charged or of confronting in court whatever evidence exists against them.

In Syria, where 60,000 people have been killed in ongoing fighting, according to the latest United Nations estimate, government forces have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes, while some opposition forces have also carried out serious abuses, including torture and summary executions.

A decision by the United Nations Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court would provide a measure of justice for all victims and help deter further atrocities and sectarian revenge. But though many governments say they support such action, they have not exerted the kind of sustained public pressure that could have persuaded Russia and China to abandon their vetoes and to allow a referral. Pressure is also needed on Syria’s armed opposition to articulate and live by a vision for Syria that respects the rights of all people.

The rights of women are a source of contention in many countries as Islamists gain electoral power. Some opponents contend that such rights are a Western imposition, at odds with Islam or Arab culture. International human rights law does not prevent women from leading a conservative or religious lifestyle if they wish. But too often governments impose restrictions on women who seek equality or autonomy. Calling such rights a Western imposition does nothing to disguise the domestic oppression, compelling women to assume a subservient role.

“As the Islamist-dominated governments of the Arab Spring take root, perhaps no issue will better define their records than the treatment of women,” Roth said.

Speech that is seen to transgress certain bounds often tempts those in power to restrict the rights of others. Especially vulnerable are statements that criticize the government, insult certain groups, or offend religious sentiment. In these cases, the danger to free speech is greatest in the absence of strong and independent institutions that can protect rights. Governments should also exercise restraint, respecting the right to dissent, criticize, and voice unpopular views.

Governments can justify some restrictions on speech, including speech used to incite violence. But it is also important to police those who use violence to suppress or punish speech. Those who react violently to nonviolent speech because they object to its content are the offenders; officials have a duty to stop their violence, not censor the offending speech.

The problem of unbridled majority rule is not limited to the Arab world. A vivid demonstration was found in Burma, where a long-entrenched military dictatorship gave way to a reform-minded civilian government. Still, the Burmese government has been reluctant to protect the country’s minority groups or even speak out about abuses against them, most notably the severe and violent persecution of the Muslim Rohingya.

The transition from revolution to rights-respecting democracy is foremost a task for the people of the country undergoing change, but other governments can and should exert significant influence. Yet Western support for human rights and democracy throughout the Middle East has been anything but consistent when interests in oil, military bases, or Israel are at issue.

Such inconsistency when it comes to holding abusive officials to account fuels arguments by repressive governments that international justice is selective and rarely applied to the allies of Western governments; it also undermines the deterrent value of the International Criminal Court.

“The Middle East’s new leaders will need to show principled determination if they are to improve human rights in a region long resistant to democratic change,” Roth said. “And they will need consistent and unwavering support from influential outsiders.”

The Lebanese government should make a commitment to improve its human rights record in 2013, Human Rights Watch said. It should establish a mechanism to visit and monitor detention sites, as required under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, which it ratified in 2008, and amend laws that discriminate against women in citizenship, access to divorce and child custody. It should also continue its open border policy so those fleeing Syria can safely enter Lebanon, and maintain a policy of not deporting anyone to Syria while the conflict there continues. The government should stop detaining Syrian or other refugees for being in the country illegally.

Lebanon has had an influx of Syrians escaping the crisis in their country. By mid-January, 151,602 Syrian refugees had registered with UNHCR, with an additional 67,061 waiting to be registered. Registration does not grant Syrians legal status, only a right to receive assistance. As a result, they are at risk of detention and possibly deportation. While it has kept its borders open, Lebanon deported 14 Syrians to Syria in August, four of whom said they feared persecution there. Local media reported however, that in January, Minister of Social Affairs Wael Abou Faour said that the Lebanese government would not deport any refugees back to Syria.

“The Lebanese government and parliament missed opportunities to advance human rights last year by sitting on, or rejecting, key reforms and proposals,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

“Candidates for the 2013 elections should make clear where they stand on key human rights issues, and how they intend to follow through.”

In its 665-page report, Human Rights Watch assessed progress on human rights during the past year in more than 90 countries, including an analysis of the aftermath of the Arab uprisings.

The willingness of new governments to respect rights will determine whether the Arab uprisings give birth to genuine democracy or simply spawn authoritarianism in new clothes, Human Rights Watch said.

The grounds for the convictions are unclear, but the court appeared to convict the two under Somalia’s penal code and newly added charges under Sharia (Islamic) law. The journalist, Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim, was sentenced to one year for fabricating a false claim – even though he never published the allegation anywhere – entering the home of another man without permission, and falsely accusing a government body of committing a crime that damages state security.

The woman was also sentenced to one year in prison for fabricating a rape case that damages state security. The court deferred her sentence for one year because she is breastfeeding. Abdiaziz Abdinur is detained in Mogadishu Central Prison. The court ordered the release of the woman’s husband for lack of evidence.

“These guilty verdicts mean that any Somali who is raped or otherwise abused by Somali security forces will think twice about reporting it to the police, and journalists will be cautious of even interviewing victims of human rights violations,” said Netsanet Belay, Africa programme director at Amnesty International.“The government should quash the case and order the immediate release of the journalist from prison.”

The groups calling for overturning the convictions and freeing the journalist are the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), Sister Somalia, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The verdicts stem from an interview by Abdiaziz Abdinur with the woman on January 8, 2013 about her alleged rape by government security forces in August 2012.

The woman initially retracted her claim after being interrogated for two days by the police without legal counsel. She later refused to recant her allegations in meetings with the attorney general. She was released, but was required to report to police daily, and her husband was detained in her place. Credible local sources say he has steadfastly supported his wife’s allegations. The man and woman who allegedly helped her meet with the journalist were arrested around the same time.

Senior government officials publicly said the defendants were guilty before the trial, undermining the presumption of innocence.

The prosecutor failed to provide any evidence to justify a conviction on the criminal charges, the organizations said. A midwife testified on the first day of the trial, February 2, that she concluded that the woman was not raped after conducting a “finger test,” an unscientific and degrading practice that has long been discredited because it is not a credible test of whether a woman has been raped.

The judge refused to allow the defense lawyer to present witnesses to the court, and he was not permitted to present any medical evidence to rebut the prosecution’s assertions. The defendants will appeal the convictions, their lawyer said.

“This case has been flawed by serious violations of due process from the start,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The long pre-trial detention without charge, official smears of the defendants in the media, and the abusive police efforts to discredit and intimidate a woman who alleged rape, point to a government more concerned with deflecting criticism than protecting ordinary citizens.”

Sexual and gender-based violence has been a significant problem throughout the Somali conflict. Internally displaced women and girls, such as the alleged victim in this case, are particularly vulnerable to such abuse. But they are often very reluctant to report rape to authorities because they fear reprisals, lack faith in the authorities, and have little access to medical, psychosocial, and legal services. This case risks creating further mistrust, the organizations said.

“This case is forcing women in Somalia to ask, who can we trust now?” said Fartuun Abdisalaan Adan from Sister Somalia, a shelter for rape survivors in Mogadishu run by Elman Peace and Human Rights Center. “The government should focus on building trust and ensuring accountability for abuses, not intimidating vulnerable individuals.”

“Somali reporters should feel secure to interview anyone alleging a human rights violation,” said the Committee to Protect Journalists’ East Africa consultant, Tom Rhodes. “The current climate of censorship and recrimination means it is perilous to take any step toward seeking accountability and justice.”

While some opposition leaders have pledged to protect all Syrians, in practice the opposition has failed to properly address the unjustified attacks against minority places of worship, Human Rights Watch said. The opposition also has failed to rein in gunmen engaging in looting and other criminal activities, like kidnappings. Human Rights Watch urged armed opposition groups to protect all religious sites in areas under their control and to discipline members who loot or kidnap.

Human Rights Watch has previously documented the destruction and vandalization of a mosque in Taftanaz, Idlib by Syrian government forces.

“The destruction of religious sites is furthering sectarian fears and compounding the tragedies of the country, with tens of thousands killed,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Syria will lose its rich cultural and religious diversity if armed groups do not respect places of worship. Leaders on both sides should send a message that those who attack these sites will be held accountable.”

Under international humanitarian law, parties in an armed conflict have a responsibility not to intentionally attack religious buildings that are not being used for military purposes. They are prohibited from seizing, destroying, or doing willful damage to religious buildings or institutions and from theft, pillage, or vandalism directed against important cultural property. Deliberate attacks on religious sites that are not military objectives are war crimes.

Human Rights Watch researchers conducted a four day investigation in the Latakia and Idlib countryside in opposition-controlled areas into abuses by both government and opposition fighters in Sunni, Alawite, Christian, and mixed sect villages. In three villages – Zarzour, Ghasaniyeh, and Jdeideh – Human Rights Watch found evidence of attacks against religious minority sites after the areas fell under the control of armed opposition groups and government forces had left the area.

Residents also told Human Rights Watch that armed opposition gunmen looted some homes after taking control of the town and kidnapped two local villagers in Ghasaniyeh and Jdeideh. Human Rights Watch was unable to determine whether the looting and kidnapping were religious attacks. Media reports also indicate that looting and kidnapping of Sunni residents has taken place in opposition controlled areas.

In all three villages, religious minorities had either all fled or left their homes in large numbers. Residents in Zarzour, a predominantly Sunni village with a small Shia population, told Human Rights Watch that their Shia neighbors had fled because they feared retaliation by opposition forces because, in their opinion, the local Shias had been supportive of government forces.

These residents said this perceived support was reflected in alleged preferential treatment that government forces gave to Shia residents when the government forces were in the village. In Ghasaniyeh and Jdeideh, two Christian villages in Latakia, residents told Human Rights Watch that many of their neighbors fled because of dire humanitarian conditions, fear of armed opposition fighters in their area, and fear of air and artillery strikes by government forces.

“All parties to the conflict should promote conditions that would allow civilian populations to remain in their homes,” Human Rights Watch said. The Syrian government should stop deliberate and indiscriminate air and artillery strikes against civilians, and opposition leadership should protect all civilians in their areas, including members of religious minorities, from any retaliatory attack or criminal activity. All parties should facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance to areas under their authority.

Witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch by phone since January 8 – when hostilities between the Islamist groups and Malian army intensified – described seeing many children, some as young as 12, taking active part in the fighting. Witnesses also said that children were staffing checkpoints in areas that have come under aerial bombardment by the French or are near active combat zones. The Islamic groups – Ansar Dine, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) – have recruited, trained, and used several hundred children in their forces since occupying Northern Mali in April 2012.

“These Islamist groups have no business recruiting children into their ranks, much less putting them on the front line,” said Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “These groups seem to be willfully putting scores of children directly in harm’s way. Before the military campaign goes any further, the Islamists should release these children back to their families.”

Three witnesses from Konna described seeing numerous children among the ranks of the Islamists who took over and briefly held the town on January 10. Witnesses in Gao said that they saw children among the reinforcements which left Gao for Konna; mothers looking for their sons who had left Gao to fight; and children wounded during the fight for Konna arriving in Gao.

“The Islamists arrived in about 10 land cruisers,” one witness from Konna said. “After the fighting died down, we went to the entrance of town to see them. I was shocked to see about a dozen children among them, several were only 12 or 13 years old, all armed with big guns, and working alongside the big men.”

Other witnesses observed children inside pickup trucks as they left Gao to reinforce the Islamists as they fought to hold onto Konna. One older man told Human Rights Watch:

On Friday [January 11] at around 4 p.m., I saw six Toyota land cruisers full of fighters leaving for the battle in front of the HQ of the Islamic Police. There were children in two of these – around five in one truck and two in the other. These are our children – what do they know of war? These so-called Islamists are sending our innocents to be slaughtered in the name of Jihad…I ask you, what kind of Islam is this?

Residents travelling in the Gao region in January described seeing children playing a major role in staffing checkpoints. A woman who travelled from Bamako to a small village near Gao on January 8 and 9 described seeing children working the checkpoints in the towns of Boré, Douentza, and Gao.

“There were so many children among MUJAO,” she said. “In Boré it was the children who came into our bus to ask for our papers and check our luggage. There was only one boy over 18 at this checkpoint. And in Douentza, there must have been 10 of them under the age of 18, the youngest was only about 11.”

A trader said he saw about 20 armed child combatants under 16 staffing the checkpoints leading in and out of the towns of Bourem and Ansongo, also in Gao region, on January 11.

The Islamists’ use of children apparently began shortly after they seized control of the north in April and has continued steadily since then. Witnesses have observed the children staffing checkpoints, conducting foot patrols, riding around in patrol vehicles, guarding prisoners, and preparing food in numerous locations controlled by the groups. Children from both Mali and Niger have been recruited. The witnesses have described how within Mali, the Islamists have recruited substantial numbers of boys from small villages and hamlets, particularly those where residents have long practiced Wahhabism, a very conservative form of Islam.

In December, one witness described visiting six small training camps in the Gao region in which a total of several dozen children were being trained on how to use firearms and were undergoing physical fitness training. In several of these places, children were also observed studying the Koran. Some of these training centers were within or adjacent to Islamic military bases.

Three places within the town of Gao where witnesses have observed children being trained in recent months – in and around Camp Firhoun, the “jardin of Njawa”, and the Customs Building (Directionnationale des douanes) – were allegedly targeted for aerial bombardment by the French armed forces on January 12. It is not clear whether children were at the site during the bombing.

The Islamist armed groups, the French and Malian armed forces, and troops from ECOWAS countries should take all the necessary precautions to protect the lives of children, Human Rights Watch said.

Mali is a party to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflicts, which bans the recruitment and use in hostilities of children under the age of 18 by non-state armed groups. Recruitment of children under age 15 into armed forces for their active use in armed conflict constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court. The prosecutor of the court, Fatou Bensouda, is currently considering whether to open an investigation into crimes committed in Mali after the Malian government referred the situation since January 2012 to the court in July.

“All armed groups should immediately release the child soldiers they recruited and help them to rejoin their families, Dufka said. “Islamist group leaders should know that recruitment and use of child soldiers is a war crime.”