West must press Syria on rights violations: HRW

Human Rights Watch Monday accused Syrian authorities of using "excessive force" in a crackdown on anti-regime protesters that killed five people over the past three days.The US-based rights watchdog said in a statement that "Syria should cease use of live fire and other excessive force against protesters" following the violence in Daraa, 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of the capital Damascus."The Syrian government has shown no qualms about shooting dead its own citizens for speaking out," said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East and North Africa director.

The embattled Syrian regime is pushing ahead with its campaign of repression against political and human rights activists, holding many of them incommunicado and going after their families and friends, Human Rights Watch said."Syria?s leaders talk about a war against terrorists, but what we see on the ground is a war against ordinary Syrians -- lawyers, human rights activists, and university students -- who are calling for democratic changes in their country," Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director of the New York-based organisation, said in a statement late Sunday.

Middle Eastern governments are failing to improve their human rights records, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Tuesday at the release of its World Report 2010 in Beirut."The year 2009 was one of the missed opportunities for women and migrants in the region," the watchdog's Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson said as the group released its Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen country studies."For human rights defenders, their small space for manoeuvring shrank even further," Whitson said in a statement.

BEIRUT — A U.S.-based rights group on Thursday accused Syria of committing war crimes by indiscriminate and sometimes deliberate airstrikes against civilians, killing at least 4,300 people since last summer. Human Rights Watch said Syrian fighter jets have targeted bakeries, bread lines and hospitals in the country’s north.

Egypt must revoke its "draconian emergency law" and Libya should free unjustly detained prisoners, Human Rights Watch said on Sunday."Both Egypt?s and Libya?s human rights records will come under intense scrutiny by the UN Human Rights Council in 2010," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.Whitson was in Cairo to present the world report review of countries in the Middle East, entitled "Egypt and Libya: A Year of Serious Abuses" which details the state of human rights in 2009.

Gaza militants violated laws of war by launching hundreds of rockets at Israeli civilians during last month’s fighting, Human Rights Watch said in a release Monday. The Israeli military said 1,500 rockets were fired at Israel during the eight-day offensive against Gaza militants, including the first rockets from the Gaza Strip to strike the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem areas. The rocket attacks killed three Israeli civilians and wounded dozens. Israeli assaults killed 169 Palestinians.

Human Rights Watch urged the Syrian authorities on Friday to probe the shootings by security forces during Kurdish New Year celebrations that killed at least one person."Syrian authorities should conduct an independent investigation into the shootings by security forces on March 21, 2010, that left at least one person dead and others wounded at a Kurdish New Year celebration in northern Syria," HRW's Joe Stork said."Syrian officials need to find out why a New Year celebration turned into a tragedy," Stork, HRW's deputy Middle East director, said in a statement.

Human Rights Watch called on Friday for Syrian authorities to release an opposition activist who criticised last year's presidential poll in Iran, an ally of Damascus."Syrian authorities should not prosecute a political activist for statements criticising Iran's 2009 presidential election and should release him immediately," HRW said in a statement condemning Ali al-Abdullah's detention."Such a prosecution would appear to be a violation of his right to freely engage in peaceful political comment," the rights watchdog said.