1iMGSiN

EDUCATION UNDER ATTACK 2014monitoring student activities at every university.Students had no right to form an association, join aprotest or speak out in public; and university appointmentswere controlled by the Ba’ath party. 1544 TheSyrian government prevented teachers fromexpressing ideas contrary to government policy andprohibited the teaching of the Kurdish language. 1545Attacks on schoolsIn reports by media and human rights sources,including video evidence and eyewitness accounts ofindividual attacks on schools, details were given of atleast 10 incidents of schools being destroyed orpartially destroyed in attacks in 2012. 1546 The schoolswere attacked by forces on both sides of theconflict, 1547 with some being hit by rockets and othersby shelling or air strikes. The UN Commission ofInquiry on Syria (15 July 2012 to 15 January 2013)documented government attacks on more than 17schools in its 5 February 2013 report and noted that insome cases anti-government forces were present atthe schools at the time of attack. 1548Although it is hard to determine from reports howmany of the destroyed and damaged schools werespecifically targeted, there is evidence that some weredeliberately attacked. The UN reported thatgovernment forces looted and set fire to schools onseveral occasions in 2011 in retribution for studentprotests. 1549 Human Rights Watch reported in mid-2013that Syrian armed forces launched ground and airattacks on schools that were not being used bycombatants. It said that Syrian forces fired on schoolswhile classes were going on inside them, usingautomatic weapons and tanks, and Syrian fighter jetsand helicopters dropped bombs and incendiaryweapons on school buildings when no oppositionforces were in or near them, according to witnesses. 1550In its 2013 report Safe no more: Students and schoolsunder attack in Syria, Human Rights Watch reportedthat one 14-year-old girl called Salma and fellowstudents in Dael, Daraa governorate, hid under theirdesks for protection when a tank entered their schooland sprayed the walls with machine gun fire in anincident which took place between 19 July and 18August 2012. Video footage viewed by arms experts atHuman Rights Watch appeared to support her accountof the attack. A soldier who defected from the Syrianarmy reported that he saw a plane and a tank attackShaba’a High School in the suburbs of Damascus onthe first day of the school year in September 2012,causing serious damage and injuring students.Human Rights Watch also documented an airstrike inAl-Bab, Aleppo governorate, on 4 November 2012, inwhich four bombs struck the school while it washosting a civilian council, killing the head of thecouncil. Another witness reported that seven bombsdropped by MiG fighters hit the playground in GhalebRadi school, Quseir, Homs governorate, on 3December 2012, releasing white smoke. Video footagesuggested they were incendiary bombs. 1551Attacks on school students, teachers and othereducation personnelSchoolchildren were frequently killed when schoolswere targeted for attack or were damaged as a result ofcollateral damage: in 2012, nine were killed in theirschoolyard in an alleged cluster bomb attack on Deiral-Asafir, 1552 and nine students and a teacher werekilled in a mortar attack on Al-Batiha school,Damascus for example. 1553Students were arrested, detained, tortured and killedfor their participation in protests that took place inschools. 1554 Witnesses told Human Rights Watch thatsecurity forces entered schools in Daraa, Homs andthe Damascus suburbs to collect intelligence onstudents and their families, or they employed schoolstaff to conduct interrogations. 1555 Security forces andpro-government militias used excessive force andeven gunfire against peaceful demonstrations at threeschools, according to Human Rights Watch. 1556The UN received information that in May 2012government forces allegedly raided the local primaryschool in As Safira, Aleppo governorate, takinghostage 30 boys and 25 girls between 10 and 13 yearsof age. The forces used the children as human shieldsby walking them in front of their forces to clear out alocal Free Syrian Army unit that had recently gainedcontrol of the town. 1557UN figures suggest that by the end of February 2013, atotal of 167 education personnel, including 69teachers, were reported to have been killed, althoughit is not clear how many were targeted for attack. 1558191