The chairperson of the Commission of Inquiry on Syria presented its second report to the UN Human Rights Council on 12 March 2012. In this report, which is conceived as an update to its 23 November 2011 report, the Commission documented further gross and widespread human rights violations committed in the context of increasing armed violence and ongoing repression of the Syrian opposition movement.

Alkarama strongly condemns the ongoing repression of large parts of the Syrian population, especiallyin the context of indiscriminate attacks on residential areas. We are further deeply concerned by accounts of the rampant use of torture as well as the wide-spread occurrence of enforced disappearance carried out by the Syrian security services. Targets of these acts are political opponents and human rights defenders together with their relatives as well as civilians with no obvious links to any of the opposition groups. There are well founded reasons to fear for the disappeared's life, as released individuals give shocking testimonies of torture and ill-treatment while in the hands of the security services.

Nearly one year after the demonstrations in Syria erupted and despite increasing international attention to the gross human rights violations committed by the Syrian regime, the violent repression against opponents of the regime continues on a large scale. In parallel to the widely mediatised indiscriminate military attacks on several cities in the North-West of the country, namely Homs and Hama, Syrian security forces continue to target leading political activists and human rights defenders.