Regime security forces have been accused of brutality, with human rights groups and the United Nations documenting widespread abuses against civilians.

CNN: 'Friends of Syria' set to meet in Paris

Mr Lloreda began rebuilding the army a task complicated by its record of brutality and contempt for human rights.

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Oliveira brings a dry, sensual elegance to this tale of hearts confounded by circumstances and silences, and he portrays social formalities as mating rituals for human animals on the verge of brutality.

NEWYORKER: Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl

Human rights groups have often accused South African police of brutality.

BBC: Africa

One is that it renders brutality, as a driver of the course of human events, hard to see and even harder to gauge.

NEWYORKER: Obama, the Prequel

But in terms of the human toll of state-induced famine and other official forms of brutality, the millions of lives lost under Kim Jong Il's reign in North Korea rank right up there with the killing fields of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge.

FORBES: Freedom's Edge

For Muslims (and human-rights campaigners on the secular left) his saga is a tale of American brutality and British collusion.

ECONOMIST: Britain and its Muslims

The brutality exhibited by Assad is -- will surely doom him in history as a tyrant and a human rights violator and the worst kind of leader imaginable for any people.

WHITEHOUSE: Press Briefing