Friday, August 21, 2015

How does Human Rights Watch document its reports? "HRW cites a pro-FSA group's statistics in their report - look at their language"

From Basim: "According to the Violations Documentation Center in Syria (VDC), a local monitoring group, government aerial and shelling attacks killed at least 462 civilians and 16 fighters in eastern Ghouta between January and June.



From VDC website on their classification of those killed:

1-The victims; the killed: the center classifies the victims into two main types according to the party that was "claimed" to have committed the crime. Consequently, we have two separate tables and statistics:

a-The Revolution's Martyrs: who were killed by regime forces and thugs. This classification is divided into two main sub-classes: Civilian and Non-Civilian.The former includes the names of all the documented civilians who are thought to be murdered by the regime forces, while the latter includes the names of officers, defected soldiers and volunteers in the Free Syrian Army(FSA). However, this classification also includes all other armed elements of brigades and battalions that do not directly affiliate to the Free Syrian Army's command, and the foreign fighters that are fighting against the regime forces.

b-The Regime's Casualtieswho were killed by anti-government fires. This classification includes the officers and soldiers of the regime's army, in addition to all the foreign elements that are fighting alongside the regime's forces, the members of the so-called "The Army of National Defense" and the militiamen who are considered semi-governmental members, and whoever has a rank that refers to the fact that he is an officer or a soldier. It also includes the civilians who were killed by anti-government forces in the operations announced by those forces.