Mizan for For Human Rights & Studies MHR NGO, it is a non-profit, rights-based civil society organization, founded by a group of experts in international law and human rights activists. The organization launched its activities in the summer of 2022.
MHR NGO is a legally registered association operating within the framework of its objectives outlined below, and it carries out its activities with full transparency through its own bank accounts.
The organization is committed, within its institutional structure, to fair participation of women and to non-discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender, color, origin, geographic background, or social class.
MHR NGO aims to protect human rights by contributing to documentation efforts, working to ensure justice for victims, preventing impunity for perpetrators, and guaranteeing non-recurrence. It also seeks to disseminate knowledge and promote awareness of human rights and public freedoms across all generations and classifications.
The organization further contributes to efforts, studies, and policy recommendations aimed at strengthening the rule of law, judicial independence, equality, equal citizenship, peaceful coexistence, combating all forms of discrimination, and fostering a culture of dialogue and mutual recognition.
In this context, MHR NGO recognizes that the democratic transition in Syria requires the effective application of principles of good governance, based on justice, equality, and transparency.
Our vision
Justice for all human beings to enjoy peace and prosperity
Values
Defending Victims & Peace with Justice and Promotion and Enhancement of Awareness
Our methodology
Neutrality Professionalism Willpower Credibility Transparency Integration
Our Priorities
- Combating arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, and torture.
- Opposing forced displacement; defending the right of return, the right to protection from forced return, and the right to a safe and neutral environment.
- Contributing to the protection of housing, land, and property rights, and to safeguarding cultural heritage by monitoring and investigating attacks against archaeological sites and artifacts in Syria.
- Supporting efforts to hold perpetrators of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity accountable, through monitoring and documenting violations, contributing to the development of evidence files, and sharing them with relevant international bodies and judicial authorities in states exercising jurisdiction.
- Defending victims’ rights to truth, justice, material and moral reparations, accountability, and meaningful participation in justice processes and political solution pathways.
- Contributing to the advancement of transitional justice, with a focus on the central role of victims in its design.
- Supporting equal participation of women in leadership roles and public life, and working on capacity-building and empowerment of women, particularly survivors and families of the missing.
- Defending children’s rights to care, health, education, and knowledge, and contributing to the protection of children from drugs, terrorism, recruitment, and the spread of violence and hate.
- Promoting and disseminating a culture of human rights.
- Supporting the right to political participation and the strengthening of democracy.
- Conducting legal and constitutional studies related to the above thematic areas.
Our Team
Mizan for Legal Studies and Human Rights has developed internal bylaws, a code of conduct, and recruitment and contracting procedures, all based on principles of non-discrimination and the prioritization of qualified professionals with relevant expertise and experience in civil and community-based work.
Completed Work
Activities
- Organizing and facilitating a focused meeting between families of the missing and the Independent Institution on Missing Persons in Syria (IIMP) on 17 April 2024, attended by 20 women and men from affected families.
- Organizing and facilitating three workshops on transitional justice with survivors, victims’ families, and Syrian experts, in cooperation with the Syrian Negotiation Commission and with the support of the UK Foreign Office. The workshops were held in Afrin on 2 March 2024, Azaz on 3 March 2024, and Gaziantep on 25 April 2024.
- Supporting earthquake victims in northern Syria through in-kind donations provided by members of the organization.
- Participating in the organization of a workshop on the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), in cooperation with the Syrian Free Lawyers Association, held in Gaziantep on 29 February 2024. During one session, Mizan presented a comparative analytical study of decisions and reports of the Human Rights Council and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
- Organizing a focused session with families of the missing in Istanbul in July 2022, during which testimonies were presented, updates on search efforts were discussed, and recommendations were formulated for key international actors.
- Co-organizing a focused session on enforced disappearance with the Syrian Free Lawyers Association, attended by families of the missing in Gaziantep on 4 September 2022.
- Delivering a lecture entitled International Action Against Enforced Disappearance in Syria, prepared and presented by the Director of Mizan in Gaziantep on 4 September 2022, attended by 80 Syrian human rights defenders, families of the missing, and representatives of the international community.
- Organizing a dialogue session with families, victims, and witnesses of the chemical weapons massacre in Istanbul in July 2022, reviewing and assessing international efforts toward truth and accountability for the use of chemical weapons.
- Participating in the organization of a seminar on the Ghouta chemical weapons massacre, held in Gaziantep on 22 August 2022, where witnesses and victims shared their stories, and Mizan presented a paper reviewing the work of investigative mechanisms and evaluating international action under international law.
- Participating in the Syrian Justice Conference entitled Justice Through the Eyes of Victims, organized in cooperation with the Syrian Free Lawyers Association on 30–31 July 2022. Mizan contributed two working papers, presented in two sessions: International Justice Pathways in Syria and Developments and Prospects in the قضية of Detainees and the Missing.
- Participating in international conferences held in Geneva, Brussels, Paris, and Istanbul, during which Mizan presented papers and interventions.
Knowledge Promotion, Articles, and Studies
- Establishing and publishing a library of international documents that brings together all relevant international resolutions and reports on Syria, along with key international human rights instruments, in one accessible resource for researchers and practitioners.
- Publishing live testimonies of women survivors of detention in Syria, recounting their stories and those of women still missing, under the title Women in Assad’s Holocaust, using a narrative approach while preserving factual accuracy. Audio and written originals of the testimonies, along with required legal data, are securely retained in accordance with international documentation standards and the organization’s adopted methodology.
- Preparing and sharing a set of recommendations regarding the procedural framework of the newly established IIMP, shared with the Human Rights Commission team based on ongoing consultations.
- Issuing an early legal commentary on the Assad regime’s law criminalizing torture, published and distributed on 11 May 2022, providing a concise theoretical and practical assessment of the law.
- Conducting a study entitled UN Action Against Enforced Disappearance in Syria: Between Reality and International Law.
- Reviewing international pathways toward truth and justice in Syria during a session with victims’ families and survivors of detention.
- Publishing numerous articles on justice-related issues, such as Justice as a Means and an End.
- Participating in multiple television interviews on humanitarian and human rights issues, including explanations of transitional justice, its components, prerequisites, and prospects in Syria.
- Producing a monitoring and analytical report on court hearings in Paris in the case of Patrick and Mazen Dabbagh against Ali Mamlouk, Jamil Hassan, and Abdul Salam Mahmoud. The Executive Director attended all four hearing days, and Mizan published an analytical report detailing proceedings, findings, and recommendations.
- Documenting and analyzing a case involving the registration of the death of a living person in official records, as a newly developed form of retaliation by the regime against journalist and researcher Samer Al-Ahmad.
Documentation, Evidence Building, and Accountability
- Signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) and transferring multiple criminal evidence files under formal handover protocols. IIIM described most of the submitted evidence as highly significant.
- Preparing and submitting five case files to public prosecution offices and police authorities in several European countries where courts are examining cases related to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
- Preparing a comprehensive evidence package in a case currently before the German judiciary and submitting it to the German Public Prosecutor.
- Designing a documentation model for cases of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, and torture that meets international standards and supports evidence-building. The organization documents violations using this model and shares them with relevant UN entities.
- Documenting a number of serious violations committed against civilians in Syria, including witness interviews, evidence collection, and submission to relevant UN bodies.
Strategic Litigation
- Submitting a communication to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court containing information on incidents in Syria amounting to crimes against humanity involving Afghan fighters from the Fatemiyoun Brigade. The communication was registered by the Office of the Prosecutor and welcomed within international human rights circles as a precedent enabling the Court to pursue crimes committed in Syria by Fatemiyoun members, given that Afghanistan is a State Party to the Rome Statute.
- Submitting a file to the German War Crimes Unit containing approximately 700 officially signed and stamped documents indicating that 5,200 individuals in Syria were buried in mass graves.