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Analysis Methodology ​

The Syria Justice and Accountability Centre (SJAC) strives to prevent impunity, promote redress, and facilitate principled reform in Syria, and beyond. SJAC's vision is a Syrian state defined by justice, respect for human rights, and rule of law, where citizens from all components of Syrian society live in peace without fear. SJAC's mission is to promote justice and accountability in Syria by ensuring that human rights violations are comprehensively documented, and that documentation data is securely preserved, cataloged, and analysed to advance transitional justice and peace-building.

This intoduction, along with unverified and verified labels guides and workflow, form the written part of SJAC's methodology.

INFO

SJAC primary analysis methodology is designed to support criminal accountability processes. Additionally, SJAC Missing Persons team designed a specific methodology for project focuses on identifying the fate and whereabouts of those who disappeared. For more information, you can check the Missing Persons page

Bayanat ​

Bayanat is designed to archive and analyze documentation of violations (human rights, humanitarian law) in the Syrian and other international conflicts. This documentation can be collected from several sources, and the content can in a variety of formats (videos, reports, documents, etc.).

Bayanat has the capacity to process this content as either Bulletins (items of documentation) or Actors (information about individuals involved in Bulletins, or individuals whose information has been collected independent of a Bulletin). Actors can be involved in several ways (injured parties, alleged perpetrators, witnesses, etc.). Once documentation is processed either as Bulletins or Actors, it will be analyzed and grouped into Incidents. These are the stories and atrocities with all the details.

When documentation is processed into the database, it is enriched through the application of SJAC's methodology, which has been built based on international law standards to best enable future use of the documentation in accountability mechanisms (such as trials). This includes entering detailed information about each item of documentation, and applying a variety of Labels that tag the content, which allow for filtration and analysis of the documentation.

Bulletins ​

A Bulletin is any piece of documentation that provides information or contains evidence. Bulletins could thus be created from almost any type of content, such as videos, images or pictures, physical documents (or scans thereof), reports, text files, audio files, etc. These pieces of documentation are imported to the database to create Bulletins; to complete Bulletins, the piece of documentation is analyzed, which involved processing by analysts.

When analyzing Bulletins, every detail is important: every detail, word, and image. Some Bulletins may show additional information that can help identify victims and perpetrators, such as faces, names, identities, symbols, etc.

Work on Bulletins can involve either updating existing Bulletins by adding details (titles, descriptions, Labels, and other fields), or creation of new Bulletins.

Priority-Based Data Analysis Process ​

SJAC switched to this process in 2017 in order to accelerate the analysis of Bulletins and increase the team's output, and focus on the Bulletins that contains evidence of violations.

The Data Analysis process will be separated into two levels. The Content and Reliability labels will determine the priority of each relevant Bulletin.

Low Priority ​

  • Content, Non-Incident
  • Content, Post-Incident & Reliability, No Evidence
  • Content, Post-Incident & Reliability, Some/Weak Evidence
  • Content, Incident & Reliability, No Evidence
  • Content, Interview
  • Content, Report
  • Content, Media
  • Content, Promotional

Bulletins tagged with these labels should be treated as low priority Bulletins. The applicable fields are the basic fields, related Actors and Labels.

High Priority ​

  • Content, Post-Incident, Signs of Recent Incident & Reliability, Some/Weak Evidence
  • Content, Post-Incident & Reliability, Strong Evidence
  • Content, Incident & Reliability, Some/Weak Evidence
  • Content, Incident & Reliability, Strong Evidence

Bulletins tagged with these labels should be treated as high priority Bulletins. The applicable fields are the basic fields, related Actors, related Bulletins, titles and labels.

Notes:

  • Basic fields are events, location information, publish and documentation dates.
  • Priority labels should be added to every Bulletin based on its priority as above.
  • Time tags and important notes in description are still required in all Bulletins regardless of the priority level.
  • Full description is no longer required for Strong Evidence cases. It will be added through a different process.
  • Demonstrations videos: Only Demonstration label, location and publish and documentation dates are applicable.
  • Irrelevant videos: Only Irrelevant label is applicable.

The steps for Updating a Bulletin are as follows:

  1. Access view/review documentation, and establish priority.
  2. Validate existing fields in bulletin with data from the piece of documentation, for Bulletins existing in database. If there are differences (mistakes), flag the bulletin with the Label Bad import and record the errors in the Description or Comment.
  3. Check the uploaded Media.
  4. Complete applicable fields, adding any additional data from source (description, publish date, etc.), but especially information learned from the documentation itself.
  5. Add Events.
  6. Add Labels. This is the most important step in processing a Bulletin. Take the time to be as comprehensive as possible. Several Labels will likely apply to each Bulletin.
  7. Add location information if known.
  8. Add Related Actors and Related Bulletins if possible/applicable.
  9. Add status Comment: "First data entry using [source info]."
  10. Save the Bulletin.

Titles for Bulletins ​

Titles from sources can often be confusing or even incorrect representations of the bulletin's content, Therefore, for each Bulletin the database retains the "Original Title" in a separate field and requires creation of a new "Title." Compose the Title as a brief description of what actually occurred in the Bulletin. For example:

  • Anti-government demonstration
  • Assad forces torture 3 men
  • Shelling hits buildings
  • Rebels attack tank

Descriptions for Bulletins ​

INFO

Each Bulletin should ideally include a Description. However, SJAC decided to remove adding descriptions from its analysis process for Bulletins as described above. Descriptions can be added later to important Bulletins while working on Incidents.

The Description Field is very important for Bulletins, as the Description allows future viewers to quickly access the content of the Bulletin in detail without having to review the entire piece of documentation. The information entered in this field provides a detailed summary of what occurs in or can be learned in the documentation, and will therefore usually read like a narrative.

The Bulletin Description should describe, in details, what happens, and what the content shows. Describe the people involved, the surrounding area, information about time and day. Be critical and only use (describe) the facts actually shown in the documentation. Do not make judgments, guesses, or independent conclusions. The "why" of a conclusion or statement of fact is more important than the conclusion itself. Always justify descriptions, be as detailed as possible, and pay close attention to accuracy and clarity.

Use the following as a checklist when entering the Description for a Bulletin:

  • Overall description, including descriptions of violations and any post-incidents (such as shooting, dead bodies, attacks, etc.).
  • Important conversations summarized (or translated) in English.
  • Identifiable materials described (and tagged with time).
  • Appearance of weapons, vehicles, etc. described (and tagged with time).
  • Time and location markers (geographical markers or landmarks, season indicators, morning/afternoon/night, etc.).
  • Other notes as needed.

Actors ​

Actors are items of documentation about persons who are involved in incidents, and/or related to other Actors, Bulletins, or Incidents. Actors profiles could be collected from a variety of sources, such as organizations working to collect names of victims, etc. Actors may also be created by the analysts as they analyze Bulletins.

Like Bulletins, when analyzing Actors, every detail is important. The information about an Actor will be used for important purposes, such as determining whether the Actor is related to or involved in violations, or in programs that identify missing persons and provide information to their families. Therefore, any information that could help identify a person or what has happened to him/her is relevant and must be captured in the Data Analysis process.

The Data Analysis process for Actors will require updating and processing details for existing Actors in the database, as well as creating new Actors. Updating and creating Actors will involve descriptions, but most importantly entering Events and completing fields by filling in information.

The steps for processing an Actor are as follows:

  1. Find the actor in the source and check the source link.
  2. Enter Names:
    • Name, enter manually if missing or incomplete.
    • Nickname.
    • First Name.
    • Middle or Father's Name.
    • Family / Last Name.
    • Special cases:
      • If the first name and/or the last name is missing: In this case, add 'UNIDENTIFIED' to the 'Name' field, and add the available names to their respective fields only.
      • If the actor profile is about more than one person, add 'MULTIPLE PERSONS' to the 'Name' field, leave the other name fields empty unless these persons share the father or last name, and add each person's name to the 'Description'.
      • If the actor profile is about more than one person, and the first name and/or the last name is missing, add 'MULTIPLE UNIDENTIFIED PERSONS' to the 'Name' field, leave the other name fields empty unless these persons share the father or last name, and add any provided information about their name to the 'Description' field.
  3. Enter Description (see below).
  4. Add Labels. This is the very important, so be comprehensive. Several Labels will likely apply.
  5. Add Events.
  6. Complete all other fields. If no information is available for a field, leave it blank.
  7. For Minor/Adult, use the age at time of documentation. Under 18 is "Minor."
  8. Add Related Actors and Related Bulletins if possible/applicable.
  9. Add status Comment field:
    • For Actors existing in the database, write: "First data analysis from existing Actor."
    • For newly created Actors, write: "First data analysis newly created."
  10. Save the Actor.

Labels for Actors ​

Like Bulletins, the database has a list of Labels that may be applied to Actors. As with Bulletins, application of Labels to Actors is extremely important, as they allow us to sort data and produce reports. Actors information, including Labels, could (for example) be extremely valuable in missing persons and reparations programs, as well as prosecutions and other accountability measures. Each Actor will likely have multiple Labels. In most circumstances only Unverified Labels would be added to Actors, however a few Verified Labels can be added too.

Descriptions for Actors ​

Each Actor must include a description. The information entered in this field will be like a profile of the individual, using only information relevant to the particular Actor. Citing or explaining relationships to other Actors, or citing outside media or sources that provide additional information, is acceptable. However, do not add information about the Actor taken from another Actor or Bulletin. Always justify descriptions, be as detailed as possible, and pay close attention to accuracy and clarity.

Use the following as a checklist when entering the Description for an Actor:

  • Overall description, including information about violations, providing additional information about Labels applied (such as shooting, dead bodies, attacks, etc.)
  • Other names (additional nicknames, mother's name, etc.)
  • Family information such as number of siblings or children
  • Additional location information, for example, if he/she lives somewhere different than place of birth or location of an Event
  • Occupation/professional information, such as company name, area of study, etc.
  • Military information, such as military number, division/brigade/battalion/unit numbers, unit location, etc.
  • Affiliations with military, political, civilian, or other groups (including name of groups and role or title, how to tell, etc.)
  • Narrative information about Events (for example, for Detention: how many times detained, when, authorities responsible, charge(s), military or civilian, whether Actor is wanted by any authorities, reason for release, etc.
  • Other notes (anything else relevant or that may be important).