Hundreds of Syrians protest over signs of a thaw in relations with Turkey

 

 'Hundreds of Syrians in the rebel-held north protested on Friday against signs of a thaw between Ankara and Damascus after their defence ministers met in Moscow for the first time since 2011.

 Several hundred demonstrators gathered in Al-Bab, a town controlled by rebel factions long backed by Ankara, brandishing banners reading: “The revolution is an idea, you can’t kill an idea.”

 “We will not reconcile, we cannot reconcile, we don’t want to reconcile,” said Mr Sohbi Khabiyeh, one of the demonstrators who had been displaced from the suburbs of Damascus.

 The 54-year-old described Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as a “criminal”.

 “We will never reconcile with the Assad regime,” he added. “Don’t help Assad against us, stand with us.”



 The demonstration comes after the Syrian, Turkish and Russian defence ministers met in Moscow on Wednesday for the first time since the Syrian conflict broke out over a decade ago.

 Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and his Turkish and Syrian counterparts, Mr Hulusi Akar and Mr Ali Mahmoud Abbas, discussed “ways to resolve the Syrian crisis, the problem of refugees and joint efforts to combat extremist groups in Syria”, Moscow said.

 The meeting was just the latest sign of a thaw in relations between Damascus and Ankara – the key backer of opposition forces in war-torn Syria.



 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who in recent years repeatedly called Mr Assad an “assassin”, spoke in November of a “possible” meeting with his Syrian counterpart.

 Nearly half a million people have been killed in the Syrian conflict, which has forced around half of the country’s pre-war population from their homes.

 Similar protests were held in other rebel-held districts of Aleppo province.

 In the northwestern city of Idlib, controlled by the militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), dozens raised slogans hostile to Mr Erdogan.

 “I came to protest to express my rejection of the statements calling for a rapprochement with the criminal Assad regime which has displaced everyone,” said demonstrator Salwa Abdel Rahman.

 “Even if the whole world were to agree to reconcile with the criminal regime, we would not reconcile,” she added.'

Assad must face trial for his atrocities against the Syrian people

 

 Nawaf Obaid and Joel Rayburn:

 'While the world’s attention is understandably focused on Ukraine, it remains imperative that those responsible for committing some of the worst war crimes of the 21st century during Syria’s brutal civil war are brought to justice.

 For all the denials of wrong-doing by Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s régime, and its ludicrous proposition that Assad is a civilised, law-abiding leader who was merely protecting his country against foreign-sponsored extremists, a compelling body of evidence paints a very different story: one where the régime systematically committed atrocities against its own citizens.

 And if the perpetrators of the similarly appalling crimes against humanity that are being committed in Ukraine are ever to face justice, then it is imperative that the international community ensures Assad and his henchmen are made to account for their own horrendous crimes.

 The worst excesses of the Syrian conflict may have passed, but the civil war will forever be remembered for the images of barrel bombs raining on civilian neighbourhoods, of Syrian prisons overflowing with civilians subjected to unspeakable horrors, and régime forces gunning down protestors in public squares.

 Now, thanks to exhaustive research carried out by a dedicated team working for the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), a vast tranche of material has been accumulated that provides incontrovertible evidence of the régime’s involvement in some of the worst atrocities committed during the conflict.

 The material provides exhaustive detail about how the régime conducted – and continues to conduct – a systematic, centrally planned campaign of mass murder and torture.

 CIJA has accumulated material that catalogues, amongst other things, two categories of criminal behaviour: the régime’s torture and murder of detainees; and its use of military and paramilitary forces to commit atrocities against unarmed civilians.

 Internal régime communications acquired by CIJA show orders were issued from the highest leadership level “not to have compassion and mercy towards demonstrators” and to dissolve public protests “regardless of the consequences.” Military commanders received written instructions to threaten communities with destruction in the event of resistance to Assad's forces. Régime documents also allow us to trace the chain of authority through which these threats were put into action, including by means of direct orders to strike hospitals with artillery and to mobilise and arm loyalist paramilitaries who then massacred civilians.

 Criminal culpability is just as clear for the atrocities which took place in the Assad régime’s detention centres. High-ranking régime officials could watch these crimes in real time via cameras installed in interrogation rooms, with the images sent directly to their offices. Some senior officials even participated in the rape of detainees themselves.

 These crimes were ordered and micromanaged by the Central Crisis Management Cell (CCMC), the supreme decision-making body created by Assad in March 2011 to coordinate the crackdown by his political, military, and security institutions. This machinery kept Assad extensively informed; and he, in turn, managed the machinery closely.

 Ultimately, the prosecution case against Assad and his henchmen will rest, just as was the case at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals after the Second World War, on the meticulous reports their own bureaucracy recorded on the mass murder of its citizens.

 Assad personally read detailed reports sent to him on a daily basis, and he in turn issued instructions through the chains of command. The régime’s internal documents show that all of Assad’s current top lieutenants had a direct role in informing him and in brutally executing his instructions.

 With the UN-led Syrian peace process deadlocked – stymied by Russia, in particular – Western priorities have shifted to other conflicts such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Regrettably, Western pressure on Assad has relaxed.

 But that should not mean that the key perpetrators of the Syrian régime’s crimes against humanity should be allowed to escape justice. Investigations and prosecutions of Syrian war criminals are taking place in various jurisdictions - in Europe, most especially.

 This is a good start, although, given the scale of the crimes committed, what is really required is the formation of a special international criminal tribunal at The Hague dedicated to Syria-related cases would serve to accelerate the criminal-justice accountability process.

 It would certainly serve the interests of the major Western powers to establish such a tribunal. Bringing the perpetrators of war crimes in Syria to justice would help to generate the momentum needed to secure a genuine political settlement to the war in Syria. Holding the Assad régime and other war criminals accountable would also serve the purpose of deterring other régimes, such as Russia, that might emulate Assad’s brutal war in the future to solve their own political problems.'

Latest Suwayda Protest Serves as Reminder of Worsening Syrian Crisis

 

 Charles Lister:

 ' “The people want the downfall of the régime!” Those were the words that hundreds of protesters chanted in Al-Mashnaqa Square in front of the provincial headquarters of the Syrian Baath Party in Suwayda on November 4.

 This was far from the first time protests had erupted in Suwayda, the Druze-majority town in southeastern Syria, but the embrace of that notorious phrase made famous throughout the Arab Spring was significant.

 Even more consequential was what happened next, as protesters stormed the building, setting fire to parts of its interior and visibly tearing down the large portrait of Bashar al-Assad on its front walls. As régime security forces arrived on the scene, their vehicles were surrounded – several were set on fire. More portraits of Assad were brought onto the street and stepped on and shredded, while the Damascus-Suwayda highway was blockaded. Gunfire soon broke out and in the chaos that ensued, two people were killed and 18 others injured.

 While a tense calm prevailed the following day, the deadly day served as a reminder of just how tenuous the Assad régime’s grip on power remains. While ten years of terror has returned much of Syria to the state of fear that it existed in prior to the peaceful uprising in 2011, the régime’s ruthless pursuit of survival has driven the country into a deep hole out of which it looks unlikely to escape anytime soon.



 This latest protest in Suwayda erupted to demonstrate against a range of complaints, from frequent power outages and water cuts, to the high price of fuel and food, as well as pervasive corruption and increasing criminality. While state media appeared to acknowledge the news from Suwayda, it blamed the violence on “armed outlaws” and made no clear reference to any legitimate reasons for protest.

 That Syrians are willing to take to the streets today is far from surprising. Over 90 percent of Syrians today live under the poverty line and at least 12.5 million live without sufficient food each day.

 Syria has been hit hard by a recent cholera outbreak, which is thought to have infected tens of thousands of people across much of the country. The Syrian Pound continues to weaken amid spiraling inflation that has left the currency valued at over 6,000 to a single American dollar. An average government employee salary in Damascus today equates to $20, while the cost of feeding a family of five is around $300. More than 50% of Syria’s basic infrastructure remains destroyed, four years after the peak of armed conflict ended, and the projected cost of reconstruction – at least $500 billion – remains all but a fantasy never to be realized.



 Meanwhile, any hope that might have stemmed from regional governments seeking to normalize with Assad’s régime has faded away, as economic investments are deterred by the Caesar Act in the US and the régime’s own obstinacy and corruption kill off any faith in the value of re-engagement.

 At home in Syria, the régime’s capacity to insulate its people from economic collapse is stifled both by the economy’s profound weakness, but also by the régime’s corruption. Syria’s planned budget for 2023 is $6.5 billion, a 30% reduction from two years ago. Subsidies for staple foods like flour and wheat are to be further reduced, while fuel costs look set to continue increasing.

 Meanwhile, one of the few budget items to benefit from Syria’s new budget is pharmaceuticals used in plastic surgery – a need very specific to the régime’s exclusive elite. While Assad’s corrupt elite continue to enrich themselves to immeasurable levels, the Syrian population’s suffering is guaranteed to worsen with time.

 While the international community agreed in Brussels earlier in 2022 to pledge $6.5 billion to the humanitarian effort across Syria for 2022-2023 – the same sum as Syria’s entire national budget – the régime has emerged as a narco state of global significance.

 In 2021, Syrian-produced captagon (manufactured in industrial-scale facilities across western Syria managed and secured by the elite 4th Division and facilitated in part by Hezbollah) was smuggled abroad for a market value of at least $20 to $30 billion.

 While the primary market for Syrian drugs is the Gulf, new markets are emerging in north Africa, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq. This is a criminal practice expanding at an exponential scale and the resulting instability and threat to international security and public health is not receiving the acknowledgement it deserves. But most significantly, it is yet another insult to the Syrian people, who continue to suffer under a régime that now produces a greater value of drugs than Mexico’s cartels combined.



 Once again, the world is reminded with clear evidence that Syria’s crisis remains unresolved and the root causes and drivers of instability remain deeply embedded. While solutions to the crisis are more difficult to envision than ever before, leaving the régime unchallenged and abandoning efforts for a comprehensive settlement only guarantees that suffering and instability will persist into the long-term.'

How the West betrayed Syria

 

 ' “Assad, or we burn the country,” Syrian government loyalists chanted in 2011. It was a statement of intent that proved to be prophetic.

 In early 2011, the Arab Spring tore through Tunisia, then Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen, and Jordan. Syria stood at the precipice as people rose up against the dictatorship of President Bashar al-Assad, who had ruled since 2000.

 Assad had assumed power from his father who had himself taken power in a military coup and then ruthlessly cracked down on the opposition. Hopes that Assad junior would prove be a reformist soon dissipated as his régime too ruled with an iron fist: a security state that used terror and torture to keep control.

 The régime responded to peaceful protests with force, gunning marchers down in the streets of cities like Daraa and Hama. The opposition – bolstered by mass defections from the army – turned to force. But the opposition was always fragmented, riven by internal dissent and a sharp divide between secularists, moderate Islamists, extremists, and the Kurds.

 Nonetheless, they made significant gains. Assad responded brutally, gradually reclaiming control of much of the country through a campaign of indiscriminate bombing, siege and starvation, mass detention, torture, and killing.

 As diplomats at the United Nations argued about what to do in Libya few seemed to understand that Syria was descending into a hell that would consume more than half a million lives, displace more than half the population, incubate the genocidal Islamic State, and draw in Iran, Hezbollah, Russia, the United States, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Britain, France and others – including Australia.

 Except for the courageous Syrian White Helmets and a few humanitarian organisations, no-one made the protection of Syrians from atrocities their priority. As the UN’s envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, put it in 2015,

 "Everybody had their agenda and the interests of the Syrian people came second, third, or not at all."

 It is difficult to convey the sheer extent of the brutality inflicted on Syrians since the hope-filled days of Spring 2011. Raw numbers have a numbing effect. Syrians were shot in the streets as they protested. (They protest still, in the streets of Daraa this month). Tens of thousands were hauled into prisons and tortured until dead.

 Barrel bombs packed with high explosives, nails, and makeshift shrapnel were hurled indiscriminately by the dozen into civilian neighborhoods. Men, women, and children were gassed to death with sarin and chlorine.

 Civilians were shot, knifed, beheaded, and even crucified. They were denied food, water, and medicine to the point of malnutrition. Children had their homes brought down on top of them, were raped, shot, tortured, and forcibly recruited into armed groups. Women and girls in their thousands were kidnapped, trafficked, and sold as sex slaves. Schools and hospitals were systematically targeted and destroyed.

 Concerns about getting drawn into new military commitments inhibited serious consideration of options such as safe zones, no-fly zones, or targeted strikes against government artillery and aircraft used to terrorise civilians – options that Turkey proved in 2020 (when it used force to prevent the collapse of Idlib) could be utilised to good effect.

 The Syrian government and its Iranian and Russian allies were not responsible for all Syria’s atrocities, but they were responsible for the vast majority.

 The Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian allies are likely responsible for between 86% and 94% of all civilian deaths directly caused by the war. There is no place for moral equivalency here.



 Today, Assad’s government nominally controls about three quarters of the country. The region around Idlib, in the north-west, remains in opposition hands, principally those of radical Islamists though other groups operate there too and the area houses more than two million displaced Syrian civilians.

 In government held areas, arbitrary detention, forced disappearance, and killing remain common. Torture is still employed systematically. Collective punishments are commonly employed, and families thought associated with the opposition have had property seized.

 More than half the country’s population is displaced either inside Syria or in neighboring countries, principally Turkey and Lebanon.

 There were many points when world leaders could have taken different decisions from the ones they did. Different decisions could have saved lives. For Russia and Iran, protecting Assad was always more important than protecting ordinary Syrians. For their ally, China, solidarity with political friends and an instinctive preference for brutal yet orderly authoritarianism were paramount.

 What concessions to humanity these nations made were wrung out of them through intense diplomatic pressure, fears of Western military unilateralism and calculations of self-interest. The disarming of Syria’s chemical weapons after 2013 was agreed to only to forestall US airstrikes. At the peak of the war, “humanitarian” evacuation agreements were accepted by Assad’s government because they facilitated surrenders and forced displacement.

 Western governments exhibited genuine humanitarian concern. But it was shallow concern always tempered by fears of international jihadist terrorism, political instability, and refugees, and the US ambition to withdraw from the Middle East and avoid creeping military entanglements.

 The result was a dangerously contradictory strategy that involved vocal backing for human rights and democracy without offering the material support needed for these values to prevail.
Fateful decisions

 In 2011, the Obama administration stumbled on a strategy of trying to coerce Assad to share power by providing just enough support to keep the fight going but not enough to bring the opposition victory.

 This strategy rested on an assumption no less flawed than the belief that Assad’s fall was inevitable: that Assad could be coerced into stepping down. It was a strategy that took no heed of the régime’s nature or its oft-stated intent to claim “every inch” of Syria by force. A flawed strategy always doomed to fail.

 With the rise of ISIS in 2014, even this approach was pushed aside in favour of combating the caliphate and managing the refugee crisis. For the chaotic Trump administration, which came to power in late 2016, Syria – even with ISIS – was never more than a “strategic sideshow,” as one of several short-lived National Security Advisers, John Bolton, explained.

 The inheritors of Bush Jnr’s “war on terror” were determined to avoid the mistakes of the past but in their determination to prevent resurgent jihadist terrorism, they contributed directly to the rise of first al-Nusra and then ISIS, and to the fragmenting and marginalisation of Syria’s peaceful protestors and mainstream opposition.

 The US and its allies did eventually intervene in 2014, first with air strikes and special forces and then with a more extensive ground campaign – but to counter ISIS, not protect Syrians. The US-led coalition’s intervention helped some Syrians – notably the Kurds – in the short-term, but while it saved some Kurds from ISIS, its hasty execution exposed others to Turkish encroachment on their territory.

 Regional powers also had their own priorities. The protection of Syrian civilians was rarely near the top. Syria’s neighbours played out their geopolitical struggle through the lives of Syria’s people.

More than two-thirds of Syria’s population are Sunni Muslim. These formed the backbone of the protest movement. One of the greatest cruelties of all was that those states with vast resources and a proclaimed affinity with Syria’s Sunnis – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Turkey, and Jordan – privileged their own interests over the collective interests of the people they claimed they were helping.

Rather than helping build a united opposition, they fomented and rewarded factionalism. Rather than encouraging a Syrian-led Free Syrian Army, a group initially founded by ex army officers , they tried to boost their own influence by arming and funding a panoply of small and fractious armed groups.



 Everything else flowed from the key fact that the fate of Syria’s civilians was no one’s priority. There were critical junctures when things might have turned out differently had protection been prioritised. Yet at each turn there was always something else judged more important. The fate of Kofi Annan’s mediation mission in 2012 – effectively abandoned by a UN Security Council that had endorsed it – was one such instance.

 There were many more mis-steps. Obama’s decision not to authorise air strikes in 2013. The UN’s decision not to refer the torture and killing of thousands trapped by Syria’s detention system to the International Criminal Court.

 Russia’s decision to prop up Assad with military force. The West’s decision to not back Sunni opposition groups battling ISIS. Decisions to allow Assad to manipulate humanitarian aid to his advantage. The series of decisions by the UN Security Council to allow the cities of Hama, Homs, Aleppo, Eastern Ghouta, and Deraa to be toppled one-by-one.

 Once the fleeting belief in the inevitability of Assad’s fall evaporated, Western fears about instability and entanglement fed a deeply flawed assumption that drove a political strategy doomed from the outset to fail. That assumption was that Syria’s president could be persuaded or coerced into negotiating a political settlement that would satisfy the opposition’s core demands.

 But no paper agreement could end state terror while Assad held onto the levers of Syria’s security apparatus.

 To think otherwise was to misunderstand the personalised, patrimonial, and intensely brutal nature of Assad’s régime. It was also to be wilfully deaf to what Assad said repeatedly: that he would not be coerced; that he would reclaim “every inch” of Syria. Those who talked to him usually came to the same conclusion, though it took some longer than others to reach it.

 The UN’s first envoy, Kofi Annan, reported that Assad had no interest in serious negotiation. Its second envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, quickly reached the same conclusion. The third UN envoy, Staffan de Mistura, skirted around the issue for years propping up a zombified peace process that existed only in the minds of those paid to attend. But even he eventually reached the same conclusion.

 No matter how often these flawed assumptions were exposed, governments persisted with a strategy dependent on the good graces of the very régimes they knew to be responsible for mass atrocities. We cannot be surprised that they failed.

 Yet despite it all, Assad has still not retaken “every inch”. He likely never will. The Syrian economy has nosedived toward total collapse. Hyperinflation has brought home a new reality to Assad’s loyalist circle, a future with limited income, destroyed infrastructure, and little hope of reconstruction.

 A future in which Syria’s governing elite will be dependent on Iran and Russia, two states with their own troubles that will likely diminish their ability and eagerness to prop up Assad, much less pay for reconstruction.

 In much of the country, the government rules in name only. The security state on which Assad depends is no longer controlled exclusively by Syria’s government or the Assad family.

 Russia all but controls the remaining functional parts of Syria’s armed forces; Iranian proxies in their tens of thousands have established themselves across the country in militias, causing resentment even among loyalists. Elsewhere, government control depends on a loose network of militias, each with its own loyalties and interests. It is a brutal compact already fraying – the daily protests in Daraa are far from the only signals of this.

 Of Assad’s foreign allies, only Iran comes out of the war the stronger – its militias, weapons factories and stores, and networks now positioned across Syria are not far from the Golan Heights. But even this apparent success came at a colossal cost. Iran’s Shi’ite militia and Hezbollah allies sustained heavy losses, and the Syrian meat grinder helped cripple Iran’s economy. Spending more than $1 billion per year on Assad’s defence, the Iranian economy spiralled downward in 2020, provoking anti-government protests.

 Russia succeeded in reasserting its place on the global stage by helping prop up Assad. But even before it invaded Ukraine, the nation found itself politically isolated, backing a Syrian régime it knows cannot command the loyalty of most of its people – a collapsed state run like a loose network of mafia fiefdoms facing a huge reconstruction bill.

 Looking back to its original goals, Moscow’s policy failed completely in its first purpose: containing extreme violent Islamism. Its strategy of backing Assad helped embolden ISIS, which was suppressed only with significant American and Kurdish help.

 Even with ISIS seemingly defeated, it would be difficult to claim that Moscow faces less of a threat from jihadi terrorism in the 2020s than it did in 2011. Its disastrous invasion of Ukraine has forced Moscow to reduce its support to Assad, giving up ground in the great game of political influence to Iran. Russia’s imperial dreams reached their apogee for a while in Syria but were fraying even before they were crushed in the fields of Ukraine.

 It is not just that Assad’s long-predicted victory remains incomplete. It is that by refusing to deal properly with a régime responsible for mass atrocities, the international community is storing up trouble for the future.

 The ghosts of the recent past will haunt Syria’s future until there is, at last, a reckoning. The UN, an increasing number of governments, and even some human rights organisations believe an authoritarian peace is possible. That Assad victorious can be coaxed to reform, his terrorised people persuaded to meekly accept their fate.

 They are wrong. The violence and the suffering will likely continue until there is a reckoning with Assad and his allies.'

Female survivors of Assad's prisons face suffering even after release

 

 'Shamed and abandoned; women held in the Assad régime's prisons in Syria face social rejection after they were released.

 Thousands of Syrian women and children have been subjected to torture and detention by the Assad régime since 2011.

 Syrian ex-prisoners Lama Larin Jesry, chairman of NISVA, an association for solidarity with Syrian women, and Ala al-Dari, who changed her name for security reasons, shared their stories.

 Jesry was imprisoned for over 100 days by the Syrian régime.

 "I was detained for a week during demonstrations in Aleppo in 2012. In 2014, I had one last class left to graduate when I was arrested at the university campus. I was imprisoned for 100 days. They were hard times. They inflicted all kinds of torture on me."

 Jesry said that she was deprived of even the most basic rights such as eating in prison and that she was subjected to severe torture.

 "Women who were sexually abused by the guards in the Assad prison were tortured for miscarriage. If pregnancy could not be prevented, babies were brutally killed," she said.



 Jesry was in coma for 12 days due to torture she was subjected to.

 "They thought I was dead and dragged me to the morgue. I regained my consciousness when my head hit the stairs. They transferred me to a military hospital. I had been taken back to the prison before I regained my health. Since the Assad régime intelligence was in Damascus, I was interrogated there for a week. I was tried for the death penalty. I was then released for paying a large sum."

 The Syrian ex-prisoner was forced to admit crimes she did not commit under torture.

 "When I was released, I went to my family in Aleppo. My family was so happy that I was saved, but I was shocked to see that the society stigmatizes detained women with the 'seal of shame.' Eastern societies stigmatize women who are imprisoned with the seal of shame. Realizing this, it caused me a lot of pain in my inner world," Jesry said.

 She pointed out that Syrian women endure inhumanly torture in prisons, but they cannot bear the psychological violence of the society when they go out.

 "Behind the bars, I suffered inhumanly torture. I will work until my last breath to deliver the message of female prisoners because they are our honor. Those women sacrificed their freedom for the freedom of others."



 Al-Dari was detained by the Assad régime forces two months after the civil war began, and she was tortured for a year in four different prisons.

 Al-Dari said she could not stand the torture and had a heart attack, and was imprisoned again after her treatment.

 Although the physical violence ended for former women prisoners, psychological violence still continues, she said.

 "Society thinks that the 'honor' of women who enter régime prisons was 'tainted' due to the torture they undergone. Women who were unjustly arrested have to migrate to other places after they are released from prison. Those who cannot migrate continue their lives on the condition that they do not speak."

 Al-Dari also said that the women could not express the torture and sexual abuse they suffered not to be neglected by their husbands, families and society, and that they could not file a criminal complaint with international courts.'

Fighting for truth against Syria's disinformation régime

 

 'A Twitter user identifying as a Syrian Christian from Aleppo boasts on his banner an image of Bashar al-Assad drawn as Napoleon. He claims that the man who sits in the presidential chair as his country has spiralled into a decade-long brutal civil war is the only force in the republic that can defend Syrian values and bring stability back.

 After years of destruction and overwhelming evidence of war crimes, is it possible for Assad to still have fans and admirers within Syria? Online, supporters describe him as the only legitimate source of power or, while acknowledging his shortcomings, lamented the times when Syria was stable.

 This is a narrative the régime and its allies have gone to great lengths to ingrain in people’s minds: trying to present a ‘consensus’, where the ‘majority’ of Syrians support Assad against the ‘minority’ who want to see him and his establishment gone.

 With the state tightening its grip on media freedoms and the support of Russian disinformation masterminds, it is hard to tell if support is genuine. In March, the régime passed a bill that would see citizens accused of spreading ‘anti-Syrian’ content spending at least six months in jail.

 In a state that counts almost 100,000 disappeared for their alleged involvement in anti-régime causes, most of the opposition is already silenced.



 Since the beginning of the conflict, the régime has used online attacks and disinformation, denying protests were taking place or making false claims about the revolution, according to the executive director of The Syria Campaign Laila Kiki.

 “Syrian state media, or state-affiliated outlets, as well as supporters of the régime online, are largely responsible for spreading disinformation among Syrians,” Kiki said.

 RT- formerly Russia Today-, RT Arabic, other pro-Putin media and a few accounts belonging to western users also play a huge part in the amplification of such content. The accounts and forums that engage in disinformation regarding Syria are largely aimed at influencing the opinion of those residing outside Syria.

 Lots of this activity is done in English, with the circulation of hashtags such as #SyriaHoax, conducted by a mix of ‘Wagner stan’ accounts, pro-Putin individuals, conspiracy theorists, ‘anti-imperialists’, and a few ‘Syrian’ accounts.

 Groups have been set up on Facebook with thousands of members where users post daily pro-Assad content and smears against the opposition.



 However, disinformation is not solely reserved for the stranger parts of the Internet, but also for the mainstream. Such content has been allowed to proliferate on social media platforms for years.

 In a report released by The Syria Campaign, researchers found that “this content was shared directly with an audience of 3 million, 1.8 million of whom are unique followers.19,000 original disinformation posts published by these actors were retweeted over 670,000 times”.

 Discussing how this compliments domestic disinformation activity, Kiki added that pro-régime accounts are also responsible for amplifying some of the western disinformation accounts and spreading false information among Syrian audiences.

 “The Syrian régime’s main disinformation narrative revolves around smearing all its opponents as ‘terrorists’ or foreign agents. Individuals including doctors, journalists, and ordinary civilians have been targeted,” explained Kiki.



 Syrian doctor and Action for Sama co-founder Hamza al-Kateab recounts the régime’s vicious and relentless smear campaigns from the first days of the revolution in 2011 to Aleppo’s siege, which he experienced as an ‘on-the-field’ medic, to today, when the régime has reclaimed large swaths of territory.

 “They target everyone. They just won’t stop,” he told The New Arab, pointing out that disinformation has been a consistent problem that has altered the way Syrians, other Arabs, and the rest of the world view the conflict.

 Initially, the régime and its allies used a tactic of denial. State-controlled media were silent about the uprising taking place. “Once people and foreign media platforms started live-broadcasting the events and posting about the protest on social media, that’s where the régime had to change tactics,” said Hamza.

 They started manipulating imagery and making false claims about the context of the protests. Eventually, with protests spreading from governorate to governorate, the régime went into a full-scale attack against the protesters, claiming that they are outsiders and agitators or members of terrorist groups.



 “This is how they justified conducting attacks outside the areas the régime controlled. Attacking protesters, doctors, hospitals, and other civilian facilities,” said Hamza. Talking of his time as a doctor, he explains how the régime managed to create doubts about the war crimes happening, obfuscating the situation for outsiders and other Syrians.

 The régime denied the existence of hospitals or branded them as dual-use facilities where anti-régime combatants were stationed. It denied civilians died in the hospitals targeted, questioning the credibility of the identities of humanitarian workers and medics.

 The Syria Campaign report found evidence that most of the disinformation materials circulating are directed toward the humanitarian volunteer group ‘White Helmets’, especially in relation to the chemical attacks that happened in Ghouta in 2013. White Helmets were operating in contested areas, where the régime and Russian airstrikes were particularly deadly for non-combatants.

 They were also documenting military operations and bearing witnesses to what amounted to war crimes, dismantling claims that the régime and Russia only target Islamic State (IS) strongholds. By claiming that the White Helmets were terrorist affiliates, the régime justified its usage of double-tap strikes on first responders recovering civilians from the rubble, explained Kiki.

 “They deny our existence and when we prove it they start smear campaigns,” said Hamza, who has been on the receiving end of fake allegations many times, which have compromised his safety.



 Whilst online disinformation is alienating outside observers, the effects of digital disinformation and propaganda have real-life consequences for those living within or fleeing the country, altering the way the conflict is addressed.

 In their report, The Syrian Campaign researchers indicated that disinformation will have a big impact on the process of transitional justice, where victims will be put in a position where they have to prove that crimes happened against them, by erasing the history of the conflict and undermining the validity of their experiences.

 Hamza stressed that dealing with war crimes and crimes against humanity becomes ten times more difficult when you add the disinformation aspect to it: “It’s very absorbing to have to prove the legitimacy of your actions, your identity, that you are a good person. Disinformation takes a toll on common sense.”

 Disinformation has compromised humanitarian aid and many agencies have been forced to cease operations or seen funds reduced or cut. Hamza’s life-saving work was jeopardised because of this.



 “Disinformation affected the funds the hospitals were getting or could be getting. Governments stopped or withheld funding because they needed to investigate us. So we had prolonged amounts of time where the hospitals had no funding.”

 Additionally, by raising doubts about refugee camps and areas, disinformation is used as a justification by Western governments to turn away or send back Syrian asylum seekers.

 Delegitimisation of any act of opposition will make any transition or negotiations impossible, meaning that the régime will not be replaced or reformed, which after a decade of extreme brutality seems unthinkable.

 “People start thinking it’s ‘too complicated’, when in fact, it’s a simple situation where a dictatorship is targeting hospitals, besieging cities, enforcing aid blockades and doesn’t allow UN observers in,” Hamza said.



 The first step in fighting back against well-orchestrated disinformation campaigns is to highlight the damage that is being done.

 “This is what The Syria Campaign’s report ‘Deadly Disinformation’ aims to do. By documenting the real-world harm caused by online disinformation we can raise awareness and demand that social media companies and governments do more to tackle disinformation,” Kiki told The New Arab.

 However, documentation alone isn’t enough. One of the main challenges in all advocacy work is that Syria is no longer being prioritized in recent years.

 “Although the conflict is ongoing and humanitarian needs are greater than ever, the public interest in Syria has declined and is viewed as a less pressing matter,” she added.

 That’s why they also launched a petition to appeal to social media companies to address disinformation about Syria on their platforms. Kiki explained that when it comes to the war in Ukraine, social media companies have been quick to take action to remove content or ban accounts sharing disinformation, often the same ones spreading false news on Syria.



 But for Syria, “lies have been allowed to remain on platforms unchallenged for years and disinformation actors continue to spread false information with harmful consequences,” she said.

 For Hamza, there needs to be drawn a clear line between what constitutes ‘freedom of speech’ and justifying or supporting war crimes. “When people are disputing events like the chemical attacks, this is not freedom of speech, people lost their loved ones, people suffered,” he said.

 Hamza warns that, even with Ukraine, years will pass and the world’s attention will divert to other matters, and disinformation will start gaining traction and clouding the truth.

 The winners of disinformation will be those seeking to evade justice and accountability.'

In Syria, my fame became a curse. Now it helps give meaning to my journey as a refugee

 

 Jay Abdo:

 'In my homeland of Syria, I thought my fame would protect me. But after I received attention for seeming to speak out against the totalitarian and violent Assad régime, being famous suddenly became a curse. It sent me on a punishing journey I never would have chosen but which has had its own unexpected rewards.

 I knew everything was about to change when the head of a major Syrian movie studio ordered me to appear on television and apologize for something I would never have dared to say in public. An August 2011 front-page article in the Los Angeles Times had begun by saying I had openly accused Syrian “security forces of torture and corruption.”

 Not until the third paragraph did the journalist make her writerly reveal: I was actually delivering a line of dialogue playing the hero in a soap opera whose title roughly translated to “Torn From the Womb.” That it was a character speaking, not me as myself, would not matter to the government.



 Since the Syrian uprising against Assad had begun months earlier, the secret police had tried to recruit me and many other public figures for its propaganda machine. I resisted and avoided speaking out against the régime. But the article had made one truth clear: I did not support the villainous Syrian President Bashar Assad or his henchmen.

 There would be no TV apology from me, and life as I knew it would soon be over.

 The secret police began repeatedly threatening me, making the land beneath my feet feel like it was quaking. I knew that the Syrian régime was like an octopus’ mafia — if you were able to escape one tentacle another one would ensnare you.

 I was also acutely aware of the harrowing punishment being meted out to other artists. Ali Farzat, a famous political cartoonist, was badly beaten, his fingers deliberately broken by pro-Assad gunmen. A few months later, Zaki Kordelo, an actor and my treasured friend, was forcibly disappeared overnight.

 At any moment, I expected a horrifying death to come my way.

 

In my 50s, I was forced to flee my country, leaving behind my elderly parents, a vibrant acting career, my house, all my assets. And I began a journey of survival as a refugee, becoming one of the more than 89 million people in the world who have had to escape persecution, war and natural disasters.

 Fortunately, my wife was already in the U.S. studying public policy at the University of Minnesota, and I joined her there in October 2011. When she asked me to sign an application to apply for asylum in the U.S., she shared a painful truth that horrified me: “There is no more home to go back to.”

 Soon, I would even leave behind my given name. Every time I introduced myself to someone in Minnesota, they would react with incredulity. So Jihad — a common name back home — became Jay. If only reinventing yourself in another country was as simple as changing your name.

 The asylum process dragged on for years. Life was brutal and perpetually on hold. We struggled to find work. I got pizza and flower delivery jobs, but I didn’t even make enough to cover our groceries. Visits to the doctor were an unaffordable luxury. We were starving, scared and very much alone.

 But we had each other, and we found strength in knowing that the high price we were paying was because we had taken a moral stand, along with other innocent people, against the killing machine that is the Syrian régime.



 In an attempt to resuscitate my acting career, we made our way to Los Angeles in 2012. I would go on more than a hundred auditions without landing a part. Finally, I connected with the director Werner Herzog, who cast me in his 2015 film “Queen of the Desert,” starring Nicole Kidman. Parts in other films featuring such actors as Tom Hanks and Ben Affleck would follow.

 My wife eventually secured a good job in her field, which freed me to pursue acting. Nearly a decade would pass before we became U.S. citizens. By any measure, we are a success story — refugees who were able to build a productive new life in America.

 Since I became a refugee more than a decade ago, the global refugee population has more than doubled. By one accounting, more than two-thirds of us have come from just five countries. It’s not surprising to me that Syria leads the list, with nearly 7 million displaced people. Millions live in refugee camps, essentially forgotten by the world at large.

 In every moral challenge, some people find the fortitude to stand up while others don’t. Some Syrian artists who were once my friends became cheerleaders for the Assad régime. They chose to remain on the dark side of history. I chose to seek the light.



 In the short drama “Facing Mecca,” I play a Syrian refugee who struggles to bury his wife in accordance with Muslim rites. When it won a Student Academy Award in 2017, it made me believe I could turn to film to raise awareness about the plight of refugees and highlight other injustices in the world.

 Fellow refugees often tell me my story helped them hold on to hope in their darkest moments. That has made me realize I already inhabit my greatest role: speaking out for refugees and those who are unable to escape the violence and chaos in their home countries, whether through activism or the film projects I pursue. And this is why my journey as a refugee will never end.'

Muhammad Najem Follows Up His Viral Syrian Revolution Coverage With a Graphic Novel

 

 'After going viral for his documentation of the Syrian War, Muhammad Najem has returned, with a new graphic novel that chronicles his experience.

 In 2018, a then 15-year-old Muhammad made headlines and caught the world's attention with his social media footage of the Syrian War He documented the ongoing destruction, using only a camera phone to chronicle what was occurring around him. His efforts to spread awareness and tell the full story of what was happening in Syria went viral and garnered international attention.

 Teaming up with co-author Nora Neus, a reporter who was largely responsible for breaking his story, and illustrator Julie Robine, Muhammad will share further of his story with the release of Muhammad Najem, War Reporter. The graphic memoir focuses on much of Muhammad's life, beginning with his childhood in Syria.

 As the book reveals, Muhammad was just eight when the Syrian conflict began. At the age of 13, his father was killed in a bombing while praying. Two years later, Muhammad started documenting the war, feeling a determination to reveal what families were experiencing. Although Muhammad currently resides in Istanbul, he has continued his journalism work.

 Muhammad revealed that Nora had approached him about creating the book in 2019. “I never did a book and I had never even met a writer, so the idea was unbelievable…I was shocked."

 To create the book, Muhammad shared stories of his life with Nora. As for which scene is Muhammad's favorite, he pointed to one particularly harrowing video that occurred when a bomb fell directly behind him. “I was shooting videos,” he says, adding, “It was kind of scary, but at the same time, I didn't even feel that the bomb had fallen, because I was shooting. That was one of my favorite videos.”

 Nora pointed to a tender family moment as her favorite scene, “Muhammad's brother found this parrot and brought it home as a pet and their father didn't want them to keep it. He thought it was gonna be a mess. And over the course of the beginning of the book, their father falls in love with the parrot as well, and teaches the parrot to speak."

 Reflecting on what originally inspired him to begin filming, the journalist says, “It was kind of fun at the beginning. Later on, it turned into something I must do. It's kind of hell for my people.”

 He hoped to show a different side to Syria through his videos, saying, “Syria, is a heaven for me, and media shows the bombs, the killings, and this other side of Syria. We are not a violent people, we started the war asking for democracy, and I think everyone should have democracy. We have to get our freedom. Without freedom, we cannot live. Other people should look at Syria differently. We are a generous, kind people."

 Muhammad says that he has dreams of continuing his journalism work into the future. For those eyeing his journey and contemplating starting something at a younger age, he has some words of encouragement. “Age is not important,” he says. “A lot of children are responsible for the children in our world, and if you look at the Syrian Revolution, it started because of children. Children can do a lot of things.” '

Syrian ex-prisoners haunted by horrors of 'salt rooms'

 

 'When a Syrian prison guard tossed him into a dimly-lit room, the inmate Abdo was surprised to find himself standing ankle-deep in what appeared to be salt.

 On that day in the winter of 2017, the terrified young man had already been locked up for two years in war-torn Syria's largest and most notorious prison, Sednaya.

 Having been largely deprived of salt all that time in his meagre prison rations, he brought a handful of the coarse white crystals to his mouth with relish.

 Moments later came the second, grisly, surprise: as a barefoot Abdo was treading gingerly across the room, he stumbled on a corpse, emaciated and half-buried in the salt.

 Abdo soon found another two bodies, partially dehydrated by the mineral.

 He had been thrown into what Syrian inmates call "salt rooms" -- primitive mortuaries designed to preserve bodies in the absence of refrigerated morgues.

 The corpses were being treated in a way already known to the embalmers of ancient Egypt, to keep up with the industrial-scale prison killings under Bashar al-Assad's régime.

 The salt rooms are described in detail for the first time in an upcoming report by the Association of Detainees and the Missing in Sednaya Prison, or ADMSP.

 At least two such salt rooms were created inside Sednaya.

 Abdo, a man from Homs now aged 30 and living in eastern Lebanon, asked that his real name not be published for fear of reprisals against him and his family.

 Speaking in his small rental flat in an unfinished building, he recounted the day he was thrown into the salt room, which served as his holding cell ahead of a military court hearing.

 "My first thought was: may God have no mercy on them!" he said. "They have all this salt but don't put any in our food!

 "Then I stepped on something cold. It was someone's leg."



 Abdo, fortunate to have survived, described the salt room on the first floor of the red building as a rectangle of roughly six by eight metres (20 by 26 feet), with a rudimentary toilet in a corner.

 "I thought this would be my fate: I would be executed and killed," he said, recalling how he curled up in a corner, crying and reciting verses from the Koran.

 The guard eventually returned to escort him to the court, and Abdo lived to tell the tale.

 On his way out of the room, he had noticed a pile of body bags near the door.

 Like tens of thousands of others, he had been jailed on blanket terrorism charges. He was released in 2020 but says the experience scarred him for life.

 "This was the hardest thing I ever experienced," he said. "My heart died in Sednaya. If someone announced the death of my brother right now, I wouldn't feel anything."

 Around 30,000 people are thought to have been held at Sednaya alone since the start of the conflict. Only 6,000 were released.

 Most of the others are officially considered missing because death certificates rarely reach the families unless relatives pay an exorbitant bribe, in what has become a major racket.



 Another former inmate, Moatassem Abdel Sater, recounted a similar experience in 2014, in a different first-floor cell of around four by five metres, with no toilet.

 Speaking at his new home in the Turkish town of Reyhanli, the 42-year-old recounted finding himself standing on thick layer of the kind of salt used to de-ice roads in winter.

 "I looked to my right and there were four or five bodies," he said.

 "They looked a bit like me," Moatassem said, describing how their skeletal limbs and scabies-covered skin matched his own emaciated body. "They looked like they had been mummified."

 He said he still wonders why he was taken to the makeshift mortuary, on the day of his release, May 27, 2014, but guessed that "it might have been just to scare us".



 The ADMSP, after extensive research on the infamous prison, dates the opening of the first salt room to 2013, one of the deadliest years in the conflict.

 "We found that there were at least two salt rooms used for the bodies of those who died under torture, from sickness or hunger," the group's co-founder Diab Serriya said during an interview in the Turkish city of Gaziantep.

 It was not clear whether both rooms existed at the same time, nor whether they are still being used today.

 Serriya explained that when a detainee died, his body would typically be left inside the cell with the inmates for two to five days before being taken to a salt room.

 The corpses remained there until there were enough of them for a truckload.

 The next stop was a military hospital where death certificates -- often declaring a "heart attack" as the cause of death -- were issued, before mass burials.

 The salt rooms were meant to "preserve the bodies, contain the stench... and protect the guards and prison staff from bacteria and infections," Serriya explained.

 US-based professor of anatomy Joy Balta, who has published extensively on human body preservation techniques, explained how salt could be used as a simple and cheap alternative to cold rooms.

"Salt has the ability to dehydrate any living tissue ... and can therefore be used to significantly slow down the decomposition process," he said.

 A body can remain in salt without decomposing longer than in a purpose-built refrigerated chamber, "although it will alter the surface anatomy", said Balta, who founded the Anatomy Learning Institute at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego.



 The ancient Egyptians are known to have used the mummification process, which includes the immersion of the body in a salt solution called natron.

 The tonnes of rock salt used in Sednaya are thought to have come from Sabkhat al-Jabul, Syria's largest salt flats, in Aleppo province.

 The report by ADMSP is the most thorough study yet of the structure of Sednaya, which has manufactured death on a terrifying scale for years.

 It provides detailed schematics of the facility and of how duties were split between various army units and wardens.

 "The régime wants Sednaya to be a black hole, no-one is allowed to know anything about it," Serriya said. "Our report denies them that."



 The fighting in Syria's brutal war has ebbed over the past three years, but Assad and the prison that has become a monument to his bloody rule are still there.

 New layers to the horror of the war are still being uncovered as survivors abroad share their stories, and investigations into régime crimes by foreign courts fuel a drive for accountability.

 "If a political transition ever occurs in Syria," said Serriya, "we want Sednaya to be turned into a museum, like Auschwitz."

 Prisoners recall that, aside from torture and disease, their biggest torment was hunger.

 Moatassem said his weight more than halved, from 98 kilograms when he was jailed in 2011 to 42 kilograms when he got out.

 The ex-inmates also see as a sickening irony the fact that the salt they craved so badly formed an integral part of the horrific death machine that was decimating them.

 The wheat, rice and potatoes they were sometimes fed were always cooked without salt, or sodium chloride, a lack of which can have serious health impacts on the human body.

 Low sodium levels in the blood can cause nausea, dizziness and muscle cramps and, if sustained, coma and death.

 Detainees used to soak olive pits in their water to salt it, and would even spend hours sifting through laundry detergent to pick out tiny crystals which they treated like a delicacy.

 Former inmate Qais Murad recounted how, on a summer day in 2013, he was called out of his cell to see his parents, but on his way to the visitation area was shoved into a room.

 Inside, he stepped on something like grit on the floor. Kneeling with his bowed head against the wall, he caught a glimpse of guards dumping around 10 bodies behind him.

 When a cellmate returned from a visit later that day, his socks and pockets stuffed with salt, Murad understood what the substance was.

 "From that day onwards, we always made sure to wear socks, and trousers with pockets, for visits in case we found salt," Murad said, also in Gaziantep.

 He remembered how the excited cellmates ate boiled potatoes with their first pinch of salt in years that day, oblivious to its provenance.

 "All we cared about was the salt," Murad said. "Salt was a treasure." '

Wives, Widows Of Syrian Detainees Lead Shackled Life

 

 'In the decade since Syria's régime pronounced her jailed husband dead, Ramya al-Sous was threatened by security forces, locked out of her spouse's estate and forced to flee abroad.

 The mother of three, now a refugee living in Lebanon, was never told how her husband died and is unable to sell or rent the properties confiscated by authorities.

 "By virtue of me being a woman, everything becomes nearly impossible," she said, echoing a plight shared by many wives and widows of Syrian prisoners.

 But the 40-year-old wants to put up a fight.

 "My children wouldn't have suffered as much if it had been me who was detained. They were left with nothing, but I insist on winning something back," she said.



 Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's régime waged a brutal crackdown on an Arab Spring-inspired uprising in 2011, sparking a war that has killed nearly half a million people.

 Around that number of people, mostly men, are estimated to have been detained in régime prisons since, with tens of thousands dying either under torture or due to poor conditions.

 Outside prison walls, their wives are anything but free, facing a maze of red tape in a society and legal system that favours men, said Ghazwan Kronfol, a Syrian lawyer living in Istanbul.

 Without their husbands' formal death certificates, widows cannot claim inheritance or property ownership, he said.



 Nor can they access their dead husbands' real estate if it was confiscated or escrowed by the state, the lawyer added.

 Worse still, guardianship over their children is not guaranteed, with judges often granting it to a male next of kin.

 "All of this comes on top of financial blackmail and sexual harassment" by security officers, Kronfol said.

 Syria's 2012 anti-terrorism law stipulates the government can temporarily or permanently seize the properties of prisoners accused of terrorism -- a blanket charge used to detain civilians suspected of opposition links.



 The government is believed to have seized $1.54 billion worth of prisoner assets since 2011, according to an April report by The Association of Detainees and The Missing in Sednaya Prison.

 The Turkey-based watchdog was founded by former detainees held in Sednaya, a jail on the outskirts of Damascus which is the largest in the country and has become a by-word for torture and the darkest abuses of the Syrian régime.

 Sous's home and farmland were among the properties escrowed after her husband was arrested in a raid in 2013 and later hit with terrorism-related charges she says were trumped up.

 A few months later, authorities handed her a "corpse number", she said.

 Alone and poor, she spent years being bounced around from one security branch to another as she tried to clear bureaucratic hurdles.



Sous said she was met mainly with harassment and intimidation.

 "Women are easy prey," she said.

 Fearing persecution by security forces, she fled to neighbouring Lebanon in 2016, clutching the old red and white plastic bag in which she keeps her property deeds and reams of other official documents.

 She has little money left but continues to pay bribes and lawyer fees in an attempt to reclaim assets from the state.

 "I want to sell them, not for me but for my children."

 Salma, a 43-year-old mother of four, also fled to Lebanon after her husband disappeared inside the black hole of Syria's prison system.

 The one time she enquired about his fate in 2015, security forces locked her in a room and threatened her.

 "I never asked about him again," Salma said, asking to use a pseudonym due to security concerns.



 When she tried to sell her husband's car and home, she found they had been seized by the state.

 "I sold all my jewellery to buy that house," she said.

 In their ordeal, some women have found a rare silver lining with the empowerment that being left to their own devices has brought about.

 Tuqqa, a 45-year-old mother of five whose husband also disappeared in prison, argued her life was already hard before the war due to social and religious conservatism.

 "I wasn't even allowed to open the front door of the house, let alone go out to buy groceries or bread," she said.



 But all that changed when she became the sole guardian of her children.

 She eventually moved to Lebanon, where she secured work and attended livelihood trainings and workshops run by aid groups, a leap from her previously sheltered life.

 When she was sexually harassed by her landlord, she blamed herself: "That is what we were taught: women are always to blame."

 Her children may not inherit a family home from their father but Tuqqa is adamant they will inherit new values from her.

 "I am not raising my children the way I was raised," she said.

 "War has given women strength. They are learning how to say 'no'," said a Damascus lawyer who asked not to be named.

 While the odds are stacked against her, Tuqqa said she feels ready to face the challenges ahead.

 "I lost a lot, but I became a strong woman," Tuqqa said.

 "I am no longer the woman living behind closed doors." '

Syrians in Idlib protest Assad régime's Ghouta chemical attack

 

 'People gathered at the city center of the opposition-held northwestern Idlib region on Sunday to protest against the chemical attack by the Bashar Assad régime in Syria on Aug. 21, 2013, in which more than 1,400 civilians died in the eastern Ghouta region of the capital Damascus.


 Protestors carried banners with messages written in Arabic and English: "We will not let the torch of justice go out," "We raise our voices on behalf of the victims and demand justice for them," "The massacres committed by the Assad régime with chemical weapons are not only against the victims but against all humanity" and "The souls of the victims are still waiting for justice."

 Firas Halife, one of the participants in the demonstration, said that they lit candles to keep the memory of the Assad régime's chemical massacre on Aug. 21, 2013, in the eastern Ghouta region.

 According to the data of the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), more than 1100 of those killed in the attack by the Assad régime were women and children, and 5,000 civilians were affected by poison gas, Halife said.

 "Civilians were killed while they were sleeping. We want the perpetrators behind the massacre to be punished. It is not possible to forget the murderers. It is on the agenda until they are punished. We will keep holding these protests."



 Ismail Abdullah, one of the participants in the demonstration, said that they organized a demonstration so that the voices of the families of the survivors of eastern Ghouta and all chemical weapons massacres could be heard.

 Abdullah said that they are seeking justice by raising their voices, "We demand decisive steps from the international community."

 After the massacre, eastern Ghouta became the region where the Bashar Assad régime implemented the most strict blockade and used almost all weapons in 2018.

 The opposition in the region had to evacuate eastern Ghouta in April 2018 as a result of the forced agreement with the Assad régime and Russia.

 Civilians who emerged from the five-year siege are currently struggling to survive in the areas under the control of the opposition in the north of the country.



 According to the report of the SNHR, the Assad régime carried out 217 chemical weapons attacks on the settlements under the control of the opposition after the start of the civil war in Syria.

 Salim al-Muslat, the National Coalition for Syrian Opposition and Revolutionary Forces (SMDK) chair, also called on the United Nations to hold the Bashar Assad régime accountable for the attack. In his speech published on the official accounts of SMDK, al-Muslat accused the international community of being silent about the régime's chemical weapons attacks.

 He stated that the international community could not give serious and concrete reactions to the eastern Ghouta massacre.

 "This situation paved the way for the régime to commit massacres in various regions of Syria. Weapons prohibited by international law were used against civilians in these massacres. Today, the Assad régime and its allies still continue their massacres."

 Al-Muslat argued that the Assad régime violated the U.N.'s decision to use banned weapons in Syria 2,810 times and demanded that the U.N. take responsibility and hold the Assad régime accountable for its crimes.

 The head of SMDK emphasized that the political transition process in Syria should be implemented within a certain calendar within the framework of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 2254.



 Meanwhile, the U.N. High Representative for Disarmament, Izumi Nakamitsu, declared that "no progress has been made" in the dossier of the chemical weapons program in Syria.

 Speaking at the UNSC session on chemical weapons in Syria at the U.N. Headquarters in New York, Nakamitsu expressed his regret that the 25th round of consultations in Damascus could not be held after the "Syrian authorities" did not issue entry visas each time to the chief expert of the Technical Secretariat of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

 "We have not made any progress in this regard. I urge the Syrian government to cooperate with the Technical Secretariat and facilitate arrangements for weapons deployment, as outlined in Article VII, paragraph 7 of the Chemical Weapons Convention."

 "Using chemical weapons is a serious violation of international law and an insult to our common human values. We must be vigilant to ensure that these terrible weapons are never used again and are destroyed everywhere, not just in Syria." the high representative stated that the U.N. is determined to work with all member states to bring those who use these weapons to account.

 Nakamitsu also shared the information that the Syrian régime did not cooperate with discovering a chemical substance found in Barzeh facilities in November 2018.



 The Syrian régime joined the OPCW on Sept. 13, 2013, and the same month, the UNSC adopted Resolution 2118 on Syria's chemical weapons and the massacre it carried out in eastern Ghouta a month before it joined the OPCW.

 With the decision taken at the OPCW Meeting of States Parties on April 21, 2021, some membership rights of this country were suspended after it was determined that Bashar Assad régime forces used chemical weapons in al-Lataminah in March 2017 and Saraqib in February 2018.'

Syria Rebels Call Protests Over Turkey's 'Reconciliation' Proposal

 

 'Widespread protests were called in Syria's rebel-held north on Friday over a proposal from Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu for reconciliation between the Syrian government and opposition.

 "We have to somehow get the opposition and the régime to reconcile in Syria. Otherwise, there will be no lasting peace, we always say this," Cavusoglu said Thursday, in remarks to diplomats.

 The comments -- an apparent easing of Ankara's longstanding hostility to the Damascus régime -- have sparked calls for protests after Friday weekly prayers in key cities that fall under the control of Turkish forces and their supporters, including in Al-Bab, Afrin and Jarablus.

 Similar calls were made in Idlib, controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other rebel groups, to gather at border crossings with Turkey.

 Small protests already began overnight in some areas, including Al-Bab, where dozens gathered holding opposition slogans and chanting against Turkey.

 Some demonstrators burned a Turkish flag, while others took down Turkey's colours hung up around the city.



 Dozens of others gathered at the Bab al-Salama crossing to Turkey, many shouting "death rather than indignity".

 In a statement Friday, Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic wrote: "Turkey played a leading role in maintaining the ceasefire on the ground" and in talks on drawing up a new constitution, although they have made no progress.

 Ankara "threw full support behind the opposition and the negotiation committee throughout the political process" he said.

 "Currently this process is not moving forward because the régime is dragging its feet. The issues expressed by our minister yesterday also point to this," he said.



 Turkey's top diplomat revealed on Thursday that he had held a short meeting in Belgrade in October with his Syrian counterpart Faisal al-Meqdad, adding that communication had resumed between the two countries' intelligence agencies.

 But he denied direct talks between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad, despite long-standing calls from Russia for such dialogue.

 Cavusoglu added that Turkey would continue its fight against "terrorism" in Syria, following warnings from Ankara since May that it could launch new strikes on Kurdish-held areas in north and northeast Syria.

 Ankara has launched successive military offensives in Syria. Most have targeted Kurdish militants that Turkey links to a group waging a decades-long insurgency against it.

 Cavusoglu's comments have sparked widespread anger among the opposition, with renowned figure George Sabra writing on Facebook: "If Cavusoglu is concerned with reconciling with the Syrian régime, that is his business. As for the Syrians, they have a different cause for which they have paid and continue to pay the dearest price." '