ABSTRACT
The closing chapter by Saskia Baas represents an example and recommendation of the manner in which a social science expert report should be compiled for the purposes of understanding the relationship between the most intricate contextual and criminal components of serious violations of international humanitarian and criminal law. Baas discusses the role of the Syrian state media during the escalation of peaceful protests to mass violence in 2011 and the transition into the sectarian type of mass violence abetted by a state-controlled Syrian media propaganda campaign. In line with the existing historical trial records and jurisprudence discussed in other chapters in this volume, the sectarian framing of the demonstrations was not explicit but tacit and was coded into the specific language and symbols within the authorized public speech in Syria as implicitly understood by the audiences familiar with this type of public communication. The analysis of the Syrian situation is based on both documentary and live sources researched and consulted by Baas throughout the region. All of them together constitute a combination of the archival open source evidence and the interviews with the “Syrian journalists who occupied key positions in state-controlled media institutions,” as emphasized by the author. This chapter lays out the initial, intentional phase of the Syrian government’s sectarian conflict-driven propaganda and the consequences of this conduct as reflected in the mass atrocity crimes, which is where any investigation of the serious violations of international humanitarian law should begin.
