Amnesty International annual report 2011 – Syria

The authorities remained intolerant of dissent. Those who
criticized the government, including human rights defenders, faced arrest and imprisonment

After unfair trials, and bans from travelling abroad. Some were
prisoners of conscience. Human rights NGOs and opposition political parties were
denied legal authorization. State forces and the police continued to commit torture
and other ill-treatment with impunity, and there were at least eight suspicious
deaths in custody. The government failed to clarify the fate of 49 prisoners missing
since a violent incident in 2008 at Saydnaya Military Prison, and took no steps
to account for thousands of victims of enforced disappearances in earlier years.
Women were subject to discrimination and gender-based violence; at least 22 people,
mostly women, were victims of so-called honour killings. Members of the Kurdish
minority continued to be denied equal access to economic, social and cultural
rights. At least 17 people were executed, including a woman alleged to be a victim
of physical and sexual abuse.