Essay --

Being located in the Middle East next to the Mediterranean Sea and surrounded by Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, and Israel, Syria has continued to be a struggle area for different regions to take control of and rule over. Since 1500 B.C. the land of Syria has been ruled by many different empires and rulers including the Persians, Arabs, and Ottoman Turks. However, since gaining its independence in 1946 Syria has been a home to 21 million people including those from many different ethnic and religious groups including: Kurds, Armenians, Assyrians, Christians, Druze, Alawite Shia, and Arab Sunnis. With its capitol at Damascus, the government of Syria has gone through a lot of change since it reached its independence in 1946 from the French. It began as a parliamentary republic which is a republic where the executive branch of government is accountable to the legislative branch. However in the time since then their government has not held firm and strong. Military coups, or groups of people that are usually the military who attempt to get rid of the existing government and replace it, have made many attempts to try to overthrow the government of Syria and replace it with their own. These attempts ultimately began to weaken Syria’s government. They joined a union with Egypt that lasted only 3 years because it was torn down by a military coup. A short time after, Syria began to be less and less democratic and the citizens began to lose more of their rights. In 1970 Hafez al-Assad became president and led the Baath government which was mostly led by the Alawites. W hen he died in 2000 his son, Bashar al-Assad became president. Since then Syria has endured many revolts and ultimately led to a civil war breaking out in 2011... ... on by so much rain that these camps have become flooded and just more miserable and almost uninhabitable for these poor refugees attempting to stay away from the violence of the civil war (CBSnews). The rise in violence against women has also been an outcome of the civil war. With many women being raped, tortured, and used to act as forms of showing control and intimidation towards the enemies. Lauren Wolfe wrote an article saying that, â€Å"everyone from the direct victims of the attacks to their children, who may have witnessed or been otherwise affected by what has been perpetrated on their relatives†, she is saying that it is not only the women that are being the victims, but the families of these victims who usually see what is happening to them (Bernard). The basic human rights that everyone should be guaranteed are continually stepped on in Syria.