One of the residential demolition videos used by Human Rights Watch for its report. Recorded by activists in Qaboun, Sept. 27, 2012. The Syrian government has used explosives and bulldozers to demolish thousands of residential buildings to punish civilians in neighborhoods where the army has clashed with opposition fighters, Human Rights Watch said in a report on Thursday.
It used satellite imagery, statement from witnesses, and video and photographic evidence to document seven cases in which the government razed buildings between July 2012 and July 2013. Two of the neighborhoods are in Hama and five neighborhoods or areas are in and near Damascus.
The total building area demolished is equivalent to about 200 soccer fields. Many were apartment blocks, some as many as eight stories high, leading to the displacement of thousands of civilians, it said.
“Wiping entire neighborhoods off the map is not a legitimate tactic of war,†said Ole Solvang, emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch. “These unlawful demolitions are the latest additions to a long list of crimes committed by the Syrian government.â€
The rights group urged the United Nations Security Council to refer the case to the International Criminal Court. Excerpts said:
Government officials and pro-government media outlets have claimed that the demolitions were part of urban planning efforts or removal of illegally constructed buildings. However, the demolitions were supervised by military forces and often followed fighting in the areas between government and opposition forces. As far as Human Rights Watch has been able to determine, there have been no similar demolitions in areas that generally support the government, although many houses in those areas were also allegedly built without the necessary permits.
These circumstances, as well as witness statements and more candid statements by government officials reported in the media, indicate that the demolitions were related to the armed conflict and either served no necessary military purpose and appeared to intentionally punish the civilian population, or caused disproportionate harm to civilians in violation of the laws of war.
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Research for the report included interviews with witnesses. A restaurant owner from the Qaboun neighborhood of Damascus said security forces suddenly appeared with bulldozers and ordered him to leave. “When I asked why, the soldier said ‘no more questions’ or else I would be detained.â€
The report said some government and military officials have been forthcoming about the reason for the demolitions. In October 2012, the governor of the Damascus countryside, Hussein Makhlouf, was quoted in a press report as explicitly stating that the demolitions were essential to drive out opposition fighters, it said.
And after the demolition of the Wadi al-Jouz neighborhood in Hama city in May 2013, the military warned residents in other neighborhoods that their houses would also be demolished if opposition fighters attacked government forces from these neighborhoods, according to a witness.
“After the demolition in Wadi al-Jouz, the army came to our neighborhood with loudspeakers,†said the witness, a woman who spoke to Human Rights Watch. “They said that they would destroy our neighborhood like they destroyed Wadi al-Jouz and Masha` al-Arb`een should a single bullet be fired from here.â€
Among the videos the rights group cited in its report was one from Qaboun, in which the narrator says Assad forces were bulldozing residences. “This is not Palestine. This is not south Lebanon,†he says. “This is Qaboun.â€
In another video, the narrator said the Assad forces were using controlled explosions to level houses in Zahra al Jadida neighborhood, adjacent to Tadamoun, in October, 2012.
Video of what the narrator said was demolition of residences in Zahra neighborhood in 2012. Human Rights Watch used this video among others for its report. Follow Christine Hauser on Twitter @christineNYT.
