12 rights groups in Syria demand end to emergency

The United States on Thursday condemned Syria for jailing an award-winning Syrian human rights lawyer and urged Damascus to release him and other Syrians."We regard the sentencing of Syrian lawyer Muhannad al-Hassani to three years in prison as an example of Syria's failure to comply with minimum international human rights standards," said Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman.Syrian rights groups said on Wednesday that Muhannad al-Hasni has been sentenced to three years in prison for "spreading false information."

Rape is being used as a weapon of war in the Syrian conflict to such an extent that many refugee families are citing it a as a primary reason to flee, according to a new report. The study of the nearly 600,000 people who have fled the country since the start of the civil war stated it was a "staggering humanitarian disaster".

BEIRUT — The United Nations estimated Wednesday that more than 60,000 people have been killed in Syria’s 21-month-old uprising against authoritarian rule, a toll one-third higher than what anti-regime activists had counted. The U.N. human rights chief called the toll “truly shocking.” Opposition activist groups had been estimating the death toll at more than 45,000 and this was the first time that the U.N. estimate was higher.

Several groups and well-known personalities in Iraq's Kurdish region have called on authorities to support the pro-democracy movement in Syria, in a joint statement on Wednesday."Silence in the face of the crimes committed in Syria is a disgrace and we call on the federal government of Iraq and in Kurdistan to support human rights, freedom and democracy in Syria because it is a moral duty," said the statement, published in Kurdistan's second biggest city Sulaimaniyah.

Syria braced for more protests Friday, a day after President Bashar al-Assad made a conciliatory move by signing a decree to lift almost five decades of draconian emergency rule.Human rights groups said the demonstrations on Friday would prove a test case for Assad and his reforms.Assad, in power since replacing his father Hafez as president in 2000, issued the order to scrap the state of emergency and decrees to abolish the state security court and allow citizens to hold peaceful demonstrations.The announcements were flashed in quick succession on state television.

Victims found shot at point-blank range on the banks of Quweiq River in the Syrian city of Aleppo, the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in an e- mail. The group said the men were mostly 20-30 years old and had bullet wounds to the head. It said some had their hands tied. Another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees, said 80 bodies were recovered from the scene.

Peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi held "constructive" talks in Syria with President Bashar al-Assad, as Washington warned that his regime's days are numbered. As jihadists seized an area populated by the embattled leader's Alawite community, the opposition National Coalition accused Damascus of committing a "massacre" of dozens of civilians in the bombing of a bakery.

The U.N. Human Rights Council passed a resolution Tuesday to launch an inquiry into human rights violations in Syria, amid growing international pressure over the Syrian government's crackdown on protests.