Two days ago the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression published an excellent report documenting the violations against media workers throughout the conflict. It states that government violations exceed those committed by any other party. https://scm.bz/en/syria-the-black-hole-for-media-work-eng/

But is this a fair comparison?

If you lump together the areas outside regime control, the difference becomes much less stark. More importantly, shouldn't such statistics be interpreted relative to population? That would show that violations were relatively more prevalent in areas outside regime control.

I'm not defending the al-Assad regime. Look at the number of casualties by the perpetrator to know who's the most violent actor in the war. But when it comes to press freedom, we should call a spade a spade: press freedom in areas outside regime control is worse.

This speaks volumes about what came of a revolution that started with a call for freedom. We used to chant in the first days of the uprising, "Syria wants freedom!"