On the recent developments in Syria, the “rebel alliance that took power has vowed to prosecute senior figures from the ousted government, but accountability will be hard to achieve in a vulnerable, divided, and battered country,” writes Vivian Yee in the January 12, 2025 issue of The New York Times.
As the overwhelming relief, immense joy, and celebratory spirit experienced by Syrians around the world at the fall of the Assad regime begin to subside and merge with the reality of daily life, Yee delves into the enormity of the task being faced by those who have promised to seek justice for millions of Syrians who continue to suffer due to crimes committed against them and their loved ones by the brutal self-serving regime.
Yee points out that even though there “seem to be no limits to the dark revelations laid bare by the downfall of Syria’s 54-year Assad regime,” most Syrians believe they will not be able to achieve closure until justice has been served. In reality, many obstacles are standing in the way of that happening and Yee cites the lack of success in other Arab countries whose despotic regimes eventually collapsed. “None of those countries — not Egypt, not Iraq, not Tunisia — succeeded in securing comprehensive, lasting justice for the crimes of earlier eras,” she writes.
“before beginning prosecutions in Syria, the authorities should first earn citizens’ trust by building a state that meets their needs.”
Fernando Travesí
To complicate matters further, Syria has issues, such as sectarian strife, that run the risk of being exacerbated if the current Sunni majority leadership pursues prosecutions of the former ruling minority Alawite sect (who held favored positions of power within the regime) too rigorously.
Additionally, “The justice system was for years little more than a tool for Mr. al-Assad, making it ill-equipped to handle sweeping, complex human rights violations. Many thousands of Syrians could be implicated, more than can possibly be prosecuted, raising questions about how to handle lower-level officials,” writes Yee.
Yee also points out that the main priority of the government that is currently being formed in Syria should be the rebuilding of what was destroyed by Assad: the infrastructure, the economy, and the lives of regular Syrians the majority of whom have been living in poverty “after years of war, sanctions, corruption and mismanagement.” Executive director of the International Center for Transitional Justice Fernando Travesí reiterated this point when he told Yee that “before beginning prosecutions in Syria, the authorities should first earn citizens’ trust by building a state that meets their needs.”
Yee goes on to say that focusing on this vital step may help to avoid the mistakes that were made in Tunisia “where a lack of economic progress in the years after the 2011 Arab Spring revolution left many people embittered and disenchanted,” adding that “By 2021, Tunisians had turned on their fledgling democracy, throwing their support to a president who has grown increasingly authoritarian. Efforts to bring members of the feared security services and regime cronies to justice are now functionally suspended.”
“The only way to heal the wounds with the other communities is to make sure they’re fairly represented”
Ayman Asfari
Some of the crucial steps towards gaining the trust of the Syrian people will necessarily include providing legal identification papers for returning refugees and helping them to regain legal possession of properties that were stolen or occupied during their absence, in addition to providing stable utility services such as running water and electricity. Since most of Syria’s government employees have been allowed to stay on to keep institutions running, Yee emphasizes that all of these services must be provided in an even-handed way, without showing the favoritism towards certain groups or individuals that had tainted most of the regime’s dealings with civil matters in the past.
“The only way to heal the wounds with the other communities is to make sure they’re fairly represented,” Ayman Asfari, chairman of Madaniya, a network of Syrian human rights and civic organizations, told Yee. Likewise, decisions about who will eventually be prosecuted, and who will be granted amnesty, will have to be made wisely within the framework of a completely overhauled justice system. “Any prosecution ‘has to be a good process, otherwise it’ll look like score-settling,’” Stephen J. Rapp, former international prosecutor and former U.S. ambassador for global justice who has worked on Syrian abuses for over a decade told Yee.
“Syria cannot wait too long to prosecute former regime officials. Slow-moving official justice leaves room for angry people to take matters into their own hands, which could set off cycles of violence and deepen sectarian division.”
Vivian Yee
Because most Syrians have been affected in one way or another by the crimes committed by the Assad regime, Mr. Rapp told Yee that he is also calling “for a ‘larger truth-telling process’ that could help ‘really begin to understand the system of state repression that was Syria for the last 54 years, and this machinery of murder that was Syria’ since 2011.”
Yee emphasizes that “Syria cannot wait too long to prosecute former regime officials. Slow-moving official justice leaves room for angry people to take matters into their own hands, which could set off cycles of violence and deepen sectarian division.” She concludes with a further reference to what happened in Tunisia; “After Tunisia’s revolution, lengthy delays in bringing cases against former security officials added to citizens’ sense that their new democracy was bankrupt.“ Consequently, the Tunisian people’s “disillusionment had permitted the current president, Kais Saied, to dismantle its democracy,” Lamia Farhani, a Tunisian lawyer who has long sought justice for her brother’s fatal shooting while peacefully protesting in 2011, told Yee.
