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Following the overthrow of President Assad’s government, opposition groups freed detainees held in the former government’s detention facilities across Syria. 

Many of the detainees had been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment. Amnesty International is pressing the new government to build a framework that would strengthen human rights for all Syrians and to show its commitment to establishing truth, justice and reparations for the tens of thousands of disappeared persons. 

A year after Assad’s fall, the rights of survivors and families must guide the transition.

Over the past year, the decades of repression and systematic human rights violations that were committed under the Assad government have continued to deeply affect the country, with victims and survivors still waiting to see their rights to truth, justice and reparation realized. The new government has taken some steps toward justice, but Syrians, human rights survivors and family members of victims need more.   

 

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Government and Affiliated Forces Extrajudicially Executed Dozens of Druze People in Suwayda

Syrian Authorities Must Investigate Abductions of Alawite Women and Girls

Torture Survivors from Saydnaya and Other Prisons Grappling With Devastating Needs

Preserve Evidence of Mass Atrocities

Key Current Issues in Syria

The transitional Syrian authorities should urgently take steps to secure and preserve evidence of atrocities committed under the government of former President Bashar al-Assad, including key government and intelligence documents as well as the sites of atrocities and mass graves. Transitional authorities should urgently coordinate and cooperate with relevant UN bodies, Syrian civil society, and international forensic teams to secure, preserve and protect this evidence. Evidence of crimes left behind will be essential to establish the fate and whereabouts of the tens of thousands of Syrians who have been forcibly disappeared by the former government’s notorious security and intelligence apparatus.

In the aftermath of the fall of the Assad regime, there have been concerning levels of violence against civilians, particularly in Syria’s northwest coast area, including against Druze, Alawites and other minority groups. Some of the violence appears to have involved government actors or affiliated militia groups; others have involved groups affiliated with the former Assad government. Amnesty International wants the new Syrian government to demonstrate to the Syrian people that the authorities are committed to preventing communities from being targeted on the basis of religion or political affiliation and to bring to court those who commit targeted killings. Ensuring truth, justice, and reparation for the violations committed against civilians is an essential part of ending impunity. 

A year after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria, survivors of its brutal detention system, including the infamous Saydnaya military prison, are grappling with devastating physical and mental health consequences amid a critical lack of support. Years of torture and inhumane conditions have left former detainees with tuberculosis, and conditions affecting their eyes, joints and nerves. Broken teeth from torture are also common among survivors, as well as symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder. Amnesty International has met with survivors, survivors’ associations and civil society organizations in Syria. Their demands included ensuring: 

  • Meaningful and effective participation of survivors and victims’ families,  
  • Comprehensive reparations to meet the needs of survivors, which include immediate physical and mental health support, and  
  • Accountability for the crimes to which they were subjected.
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