(CNN) -- When Catherine al-Talli was 13 years old, a group of strangers came knocking at her family's home in Syria. It was 1992.





Her mother let them in, and feverishly they explained that earlier that day they saw Syrian security forces surround al-Talli's father, a democracy activist, at a bus station.





"They told us that 10 of them, the forces, had their guns out and they were all around my father. They kidnapped him and pushed him into a car," she recalled. Though they were just children, she and her siblings knew exactly what had happened.





They knew their father risked his life as an activist who opposed the Syrian regime. He was paying for that, and now too would their family.





It's hard for al-Talli to talk about her father. Shortly after the regime changed hands in 2000 from father to son, he was released from prison. But al-Talli's father had been tortured, forever scarred and changed.





"This is difficult to talk about," said al-Talli who became a human rights attorney and activist, inspired by her father's work. "It's really hard to find your dad kidnapped because of his doing good."





Until a few months ago, father and daughter were living in Syria. But their activism had made them both targets, and they're now temporarily living in the United States. They watch the horror of their country on the nightly news.





On Thursday, the United Nations announced that the number of people killed since protests began this year against the regime of Bashar al-Assad had surpassed 4,000. More than 300 children have lost their lives, and the U.N. reports that children have been specifically targeted, and some tortured to death.





According to a September U.N. report, the human suffering behind those numbers looks like this:





Security forces opening fire on a funeral procession in Dar'aa, a city near the border with Jordan; security force snipers on rooftops picking off demonstrators in Damascus; the bodies of those missing, including children, being returned to their families with their bodies torn apart by torture.





Water tanks, food supplies, electricity -- everything needed to survive has been targeted by Syrian army and security forces, according to the report.





Thousands of people have been arrested. More than 14,000 are reported to be in detention as a result of al-Assad's crackdown on the opposition, Pillay said, and at least 12,400 people have fled their homes to neighboring countries.





U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay cited a report released Monday by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry which concluded that security and military forces "committed crimes against humanity" against civilians. Syria officially denied access to commission investigators but they still managed to interview 223 victims and witnesses, including military and security forces who had defected.





Foreign journalists have been blocked from entering Syria. Al-Assad told a British paper that Syria "will not bow down" and that any potential foreign military action against his country would lead to "very dire" consequences.





But the bloodshed and the blocking of journalists and rights workers will not discourage protesters, al-Talli said.





"The Syrian people have known what the price of freedom would be," she said. "They knew it would be very high.





"We know that the rest of the world understands that. They believe that the international community will not let the al-Assad regime commit more crimes."





Al-Talli has participated in demonstrations against al-Assad, including the March 16 rally in Marjeh Square in Damascus when 150 protesters held pictures of their imprisoned relatives. While demonstrating in mid-May, she was detained by security forces who took her cell phone and her professional attorney identification, she told CNN.com.





"I don't them, 'You cannot arrest me without [reason], I'm a lawyer.' They didn't listen."





Al-Talli said she was held in a cell in Damascus for 48 hours in the same government building where
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