Syria’s military and security forces have committed crimes against humanity during their crackdown on protesters, a United Nations-appointed probe said today, urging the Government to immediately end “gross” human rights violations and bring perpetrators to justice.

In August the UN Human Rights Council established the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria to investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law in the country since March, when the pro-democracy protests began.

Syria is “responsible for wrongful acts, including crimes against humanity, committed by members of its military and security forces as documented in the present report,” states the report, which was presented at a news conference in Geneva by the three-member commission.

The 39-page report documents patterns of summary execution, arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearance, torture, including sexual violence, as well as violations of children’s rights.

“The substantial body of evidence gathered by the commission indicates that these gross violations of human rights have been committed by Syrian military and security forces since the beginning of the protests in March,” states the report.

According to international law, when certain crimes are committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against civilians and the perpetrators know that their conduct is part of this attack, such offences constitute crimes against humanity, the report points out.

“The commission is thus gravely concerned that crimes against humanity of murder, torture, rape or other forms of sexual violence of comparable gravity, imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty, enforced disappearances of persons and other inhumane acts of a similar character have occurred in different locations in the country since March,” it adds.

The commission called on the Syrian Government to put an immediate end to the ongoing gross human rights violations, to initiate independent and impartial investigations of these violations and to bring perpetrators to justice.

It also reiterated its call for immediate and unhindered access to Syria, noting that the Government, despite many requests, failed to engage in dialogue and to grant the commission access to the country.

The report – authored by chairperson Paulo Pinheiro, Yakin Ertürk and Karen Koning AbuZayd – is based on interviews with 223 victims and witnesses of alleged human rights violations, including civilians and defectors from the military and the security forces.

From the end of September until mid-November, the commission held meetings with Member States from all regional groups, regional organizations, including the League of Arab States and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), human rights defenders, journalists and experts.

More than 3,500 Syrians have been killed since the start of the protests, which are part of a broader uprising across North Africa and the Middle East that has led to the toppling of long-standing regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

“Governments have an obligation to maintain public order. They bear the ultimate responsibility for protecting individuals under their jurisdiction, including those participating in public assemblies and exercising their right to freedom of expression,” states the report.

“In the Syrian Arab Republic, the high toll of dead and injured is the result of the excessive use of force by State forces in many regions,” it adds.

Among its recommendations, the commission suggested that the Human Rights Council establish the mandate of a special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Syria, and that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) establish a field presence in the country with a protection and promotion mandate.

A birth certificate is an important affidavit that gets recorded in the Births Register of the country where a child is born. This certificate includes information like place, year, month, day, date and time of the child’s birth. This is considered a very useful and important document is an identification to determine the person’s nationality and age.

A regular birth certificate should have the child’s sex, the place it was born and the day, date and time it was born. At the time of registering the PPSN of the child will be provided by the office. The child’s forename and surname should be clearly mentioned as this will be used in all documents thereafter.

The details of the mother, her forename, surname, maiden name and occupation should be clearly mentioned. The type of occupation should be mentioned for the purpose of statistics. The present and the previous occupations should also be mentioned in these cases. ‘Unemployed’ is not an acknowledged term and hence a woman who is not employed can use the term ‘home maker’

The mother’s marital status when the child is born, ‘widow’, ‘single,’ ‘married’, ‘never married’ or ‘separated’ should be clearly mentioned. Along with this declaration her date of birth and PPSN No. should be mentioned.

The father’s forename and surname, marital status, the surname and birth name of the mother of the father should be recorded in the register of baptisms. The father’s address, occupation and any other details related to the registering of the child’s birth.

A birth certificate is used at the time of school admissions, college admissions, and hospital benefits, licenses of any kind, applying for government grants or legal documents from the government. It is used for all purpose as an identity document to disclose the person’s age, name and sex for statistical purposes by the government.

Intellectual property, also known as IP, is a legal term shaped from the formal development of an idea or concept, ordinarily within the corporate world. IP may be an invention, design or brand, or in a non commercial sense a song or work of art. IP can be traded and possessed similar to a physical product.

Types of IP

IP comes in many forms, with the aims of protecting the concepts, ideas and design entities of a business.

The nature of necessary IP protection depends upon the created idea, with differing requirements for alternate forms of product.

Intellectual Property (IP) is mostly known in terms of patenting; however there are four key categories of IP rights frequently used in the protection of inventions or creations:

• copyright
• trade marks
• design
• patent

There are however additional measures, such as forms of contractual confidentiality agreements.

Copyright

In the instance that a physical entity, design, product, concept or idea is formed by a subcontracter, ordinarily and by rights the subcontractor (unless agreed otherwise) is entitled to copyright the work on their own behalf.

A copyrighted product is traditionally marked with the copyright symbol © with the name of the owner, date added, along with additional information. Copyrighting is most often used today in websites and brochures.

Trade marks

Trade marks are commonly commercial identity phrases designs and symbols, i.e. logos and brand names. Trade marks are used to establish goods and services in the commercial market.

Designs

Registering a design is a legal entitlement protecting the general aesthetic approach of a product within its commercial area of registry. The key characteristics that shape the design will be made up of considered areas including:

• colours
• materials
• lines
• contours
• shape
• concept
• texture
• appearance

It is also possible to register a design encasing the ornamentation alone i.e. pattern or a stylised symbol.

A design must be new and have individual character to be officially registered.

Patent

Patenting a concept protects the character and processes that forms a working idea. This form of IP enables inventors to obtain profit through produced inventions.

A free patents database can be accessed through the Intellectual Office of Property website, in addition to a search tool providing access to an online database displaying existing patented ideas.

Once acquiring a patent it can be licensed to an interested company or business for profit.