An inconvenient question about Syria

These attacks by the government:

Heavy shelling and gunfire has rocked the Syrian town of Jisr al-Shughour, two days into a military assault that has caused more than 5,000 refugees to flee into neighbouring Turkey.
The continued assault suggests some groups in the town are resisting the armed forces as the regime tries to crush a sustained challenge to President Bashar al-Assad.

Now yes, it’s not a democracy, Assad is a dictator, the regime is a shitty and oppressive one.
However, it’s very difficult to see that they’re doing anything wrong in law.

They are the de facto and de jure government of the country. One of the rights that such a government has is the putting down of armed rebellion.

As we did in 1916 in Dublin for example, or Weimar did with Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch, Kerensky’s Government could have (should have!) shot every Bolshevik with a gun in their hands.

If you win you’re freedom fighters of course. And we might well decide that we prefer those would be freedom fighters to the thugs who currently rule the place and thus support them. For example, Ghadaffi…we support those who would overthrow him but it’s difficult to see that he’s illegally putting down an armed rebellion: it’s the most basic “right” that a de jure government has, to defend itself against armed overthrow.
So the inconvenient question is: just what is the Syrian Government doing that is wrong in law?

BY Tim Worstall