About Us
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
About us
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) is an independent and impartial UK-based
human rights organisation, founded in 2006 by Rami Abdulrahman. Since its inception, SOHR
has developed into a hundreds-strong network of activists dedicated to defending human
rights in Syria. Our organisation monitors, documents and publishes the daily developments
within Syria in order to provide an objective understanding of the situation inside the country.
The mission of SOHR is to preserve the truth in order to support justice, equality and freedom in Syria.
Our history
SOHR was founded in May 2006 as an organisation dedicated to protecting the rights of
political prisoners and all other prisoners of conscience in Syria. The organisation’s founder,
Rami Abdulrahman, (born Ossama Suleiman) began to build a network of human rights
activists, lawyers, and other like-minded individuals, as SOHR worked to protect those who
were unjustly persecuted as political prisoners. Meanwhile, SOHR set out on its initiative to
use its unique network of sources to monitor, document and publish information from within
Syria – drawing global attention to human rights abuses in the country. Following the
outbreak of the Syrian Revolution in March 2011, SOHR dedicated its efforts to reporting the
developments on the ground, becoming one of the most highly-trusted sources globally for
information on Syria. As the conflict in Syria has escalated into civil war, with major
international and regional players also involved, SOHR has continued to defend the human
rights of the Syrian people through our reports on the reality of the situation in Syria.
Our principles
Human rights: as a human rights organisation, the Syrian Observatory and its work are
primarily guided and informed by The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR),
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights, as well as the Environmental Rights. SOHR firmly believes that the
protection of human rights is essential to the development of peace, justice, equality, freedom
and democracy in Syria.
Impartiality: SOHR rejects affiliation with any state, political party or organisation. SOHR is
dedicated to non-biased reporting which shall reflect the reality of the situation in Syria.
Non-profit: SOHR does not operate for financial profit. This is crucial to the objectivity, clarity,
and reliability of our output.
What we do
SOHR constantly monitors political, military and humanitarian developments in Syria in order
to produce accurate, honest and credible information and reports which offer clarity,
particularly at a time of great chaos and uncertainty in Syria. We continually work on
developing our network of reliable sources both in Syria and internationally. Our activists and
sources maintain anonymity in order to ensure their security, and to prevent the corruption of
the information they provide. SOHR produces its reports using multiple sources, such as video
evidence and testimonies, as well as medical, military and field reports. We publish our reports
via our website, official Facebook page, and Twitter. Our reports are often cited by major
international news outlets, other human rights organisations and the United Nations.