Syria: Attacks on Schools Endanger Students

Children Interrogated, Arrested; Schools Shelled

Human Rights Watch

"(London) – The Syrian government has interrogated students and carried out violent assaults on their protests and military attacks on schools, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.Both government forces and opposition armed groups have used schools as military bases, barracks, detention centers, and sniper posts, turning places of learning into military targets and putting students at risk.

The 33-page report, “Safe No More: Students and Schools under Attack in Syria,” is based on more than 70 interviews, including with 16 students and 11 teachers who fled Syria, primarily from Daraa, Homs, and greater Damascus. The report documents the use of schools for military purposes by both sides. It also describes how teachers and state security agents interrogated and beat students for alleged anti-government activity, and how security forces and shabiha, pro-government militias, assaulted peaceful student demonstrations. In several instances reported to Human Rights Watch, government forces fired on school buildings that were not being used for military purposes.

“Syrian children have had to face things in the horrors of war that no child should have to bear – interrogated, targeted, and attacked,” said Priyanka Motaparthy, children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “Schools should be havens, but in a country that once valued schooling, many Syrian children aren’t even getting basic education and are losing out on their future.”......."