Human rights in Uzbekistan have been described as "abysmal" by Human Rights Watch, and the country has received heavy criticism from the UK and the US for alleged arbitrary arrests, religious persecution and torture employed by the government on a regional and national level.
The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, Canada. It was founded by Ronald Deibert in 2001. The laboratory studies information controls that impact the openness and security of the Internet and that pose threats to human rights. The organization uses a "mixed methods" approach which combines computer-generated interrogation, data mining, and analysis with intensive field research, qualitative social science, and legal and policy analysis methods.
Internet censorship in Tunisia significantly decreased in January 2011, following the ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, as the new acting government removed filters on social networking sites such as YouTube.
The Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto is an interdisciplinary academic centre with various research and educational programs committed to the field of globalization. It offers master's degrees in Global Affairs, Public Policy, European, Russian, and Asia-Pacific studies. The Munk School is a member of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs, a group of schools that educate students in international affairs. Admission to the Munk School is highly competitive.
The situation for human rights in Syria is considered egregiously poor among international observers. A state of emergency was in effect from 1963 until April 2011, giving security forces sweeping powers of arrest and detention.
The mass media in Syria consists primarily of television, radio, Internet, film and print. The national language of Syria is Arabic but some publications and broadcasts are also available in English and French. While television is the most popular medium in Syria, the Internet has become a widely utilized vehicle to disseminate content. Transcending all available media, the government seeks to control what Syrians see by restricting coverage from outside sources. Publications and broadcasts are monitored by members of the government. Syria is ranked as one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. There were 28 journalists killed in combat in 2012.
Tal Dosr al-Mallohi born January 4, 1991 is a Syrian blogger from Homs. In December 2009, Tal was taken from her home by Syrian forces, which took issue with the contents of her blog.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian Civil War from May to August 2011, including the escalation of violence in many Syrian cities.
Since the start of the Syrian Civil War, all sides have used social media to try to discredit their opponents by using negative terms such as 'Syrian regime' for the government, 'armed gangs/terrorists' for the rebels, 'Syrian government/US State Department propaganda', 'biased', 'US/Western/foreign involvement'. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, given the complexity of the Syrian conflict, media bias in reporting remains a key challenge, plaguing the collection of useful data and misinforming researchers and policymakers regarding the actual events taking place.
Homa Dorothy Parvaz born in Isfahan, Iran, is an editor at NPR.
Amina Abdallah Arraf al Omari was a fictional character and hoax persona created and maintained by American Tom MacMaster. The identity was presented as a Syrian-American blogger, identifying herself as a lesbian on her weblog A Gay Girl in Damascus and blogging in support of increased civil and political freedom for Syrians. During the 2011 Syrian uprising, a posting on the blog purportedly by "Amina's" cousin claimed that Amina was abducted on June 6, 2011. This sparked a strong outcry from the LGBT community and was covered widely in mainstream media.
Razan Zaitouneh is a Syrian human rights lawyer and civil society activist. Actively involved in the Syrian uprising, she went into hiding after being accused by the government of being a foreign agent and her husband was arrested. Zaitouneh has documented human rights in Syria for the Local Coordination Committees of Syria. Zaitouneh was kidnapped on 9 December 2013, most likely by Jaysh al-Islam. Her fate remains unknown. It is suspected that she has been killed.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian Civil War from January to April 2012, during which time the spate of protests that began in January 2011 lasted into another calendar year. An Arab League monitoring mission ended in failure as Syrian troops and anti-government militants continued to do battle across the country and the Syrian government prevented foreign observers from touring active battlefields, including besieged opposition strongholds. A United Nations-backed ceasefire brokered by special envoy Kofi Annan met a similar fate, with unarmed UN peacekeepers' movements tightly controlled by the government and fighting.
Human rights violations during the Syrian civil war have been numerous and serious, with United Nations reports stating that the war has been "characterized by a complete lack of adherence to the norms of international law" by the warring parties who have "caused civilians immeasurable suffering". For a relatively small number of these war crimes, prosecution of Syrian civil war criminals has resulted.
The Battle of Damascus, also known as Operation Damascus Volcano, started on 15 July 2012 during the Syrian Civil War. It is unclear who started the battle. Thousands of rebels infiltrated Damascus from the surrounding countryside. Following this, according to some reports, the opposition forces launched an operation to capture the capital, while according to other reports, the military learned of the large-scale rebel operation beforehand and made a preemptive strike. Some reports even suggested the rebels launched the operation prematurely due to their plans being discovered by the security forces.
Suheir al-Atassi is the leading female secular activist in the Syrian opposition, and co-vice-president of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces between November 2012 and December 2013. She has been called the "Lady of the Revolution" and is widely respected in secular and intellectual circles within the Syrian opposition structure. She had previously run the media wing of the banned Jamal Atassi Forum, which was named after her father, a founding member of the Ba'ath Party who later left and founded the Democratic Arab Socialist Union.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian civil war from May to December 2013. Information about aggregated casualty counts is found at Casualties of the Syrian Civil War.
Ali Mahmoud Othman is a Syrian citizen journalist and activist from Homs. He is nicknamed the "Eyes of Baba Amr" and "Jeddo" (Grandfather).
Mansour al-Omari is a Syrian journalist and human rights defender, he contributed to the documentation of human rights violations in Syria with the beginning of the Syrian Uprising. al-Omari was born in the Syrian capital of Damascus in 1979 to a middle-class family, and he was raised in Damascus. al-Omari studied English literature at Damascus University, While a student in college he started his translation and journalism work.
Noura Ghazi, or Noura Ghazi Safadi is a Syrian human rights lawyer and activist. Her husband, the Syrian-Palestinian Bassel Khartabil, or Bassel Safadi was an open-source software developer and one of Syria’s leading pro-free speech and democracy activists. He was arrested by the Syrian government in 2012 and executed in 2015.
