CETRI
The return of exiles and refugees
Syria has opened its doors in the last year to hundreds of thousands of exiles and refugees who had not set foot in the country for years or decades, fearing arrest or death. The end of the regime has allowed the entry of those who were forced to leave the country during the dictatorship and, in even greater numbers, after the revolutionary process and war that began in 2011.
According to UNHCR , more than 1.5 million Syrians were able to return to their homes between December 2024 and June 2025 (half a million of them were living in other countries and more than a million were internally displaced). This mass return intensifies the need for financial support to guarantee basic services, electricity supply, and access to goods such as fuel, medicine, and food, as well as the reconstruction of infrastructure, much of which was destroyed after more than a decade of war.
The urgency of lifting the sanctions
With 90% of the Syrian population living below the poverty line, Syria needs immediate and sustained relief on several fronts. In this situation, lifting international sanctions is a priority. Although their stated objective was to weaken the regime, in practice the sanctions allowed the Assad clan to maintain its economic privileges, circumventing restrictions through state monopolies, a vast black market, and drug trafficking, while the population suffered the economic devastation.
In May 2025, during a tour of the Middle East, President Donald Trump announced the lifting of sanctions, specifically his intention to repeal the Caesar Civilian Protection Act (also known as the Caesar Act). This law takes its name from the pseudonym of a former forensic photographer for the military police who managed to escape Syria, taking with him thousands of photographs that served as evidence of crimes committed against detainees in intelligence centers in Damascus.
The announcement of the law’s repeal, now that those responsible for these crimes are no longer in power, was celebrated by Syrians both inside and outside the country. However, more than six months later, its fate remains uncertain, subject to the whims and last-minute changes of the US administration.
A devastating drought
In the economic crisis gripping the country, the issue of water occupies a central place. Syria not only faces a devastating drought (it barely rains and desertification is advancing), but also a near-total lack of water autonomy, since its main sources are controlled by external actors, primarily Türkiye and Israel.
Since the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel has occupied the Golan Heights, the most fertile region of Syria, gaining control of approximately 40% of Syria’s water resources. Springs, rivers, and aquifers that historically supplied the country’s water systems have since been diverted to supply Israeli water systems and settlements in occupied Palestinian territories.
To the north, Turkey controls the water from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and in recent years has used dams to reduce the flow into Syria. This has affected not only agriculture and livestock farming, but also domestic water supplies and electricity production in several provinces, some of them under Kurdish administration. Turkey has, in fact, repeatedly used water as a tool of pressure against the Syrian Democratic Forces, with whom it maintains constant tension.
Old and recent wounds
The coastal and Sweida massacres have left deep wounds, compounding older ones. For decades, Syria’s rich religious, cultural, and ethnic mosaic was exploited to divide, sow distrust, and entrench loyalties, attempting to turn communities against one another. A year after Assad’s fall, Syria continues to bear the scars of these fractures.
There is a growing polarization between those who support the government and celebrate all its measures and those who accuse it of having permitted or even committed massacres against minorities such as the Druze and the Alawites. To address this divide, organizations like the Families for Freedom Forum , which has worked for years to advocate for the rights of the detained and disappeared, are calling on the current authorities for a firm commitment to justice, truth, and reconciliation for all Syrians. Among their demands are the creation of a National Truth Commission that incorporates a gender and human rights perspective, the active participation of victims, the opening of prisons, and the protection of archives that could be used as evidence in future trials.
In recent weeks, protests have taken place in various cities demanding justice for the victims of the massacres. The government has responded with statements emphasizing « the legitimacy of these protests » while urging against the use of separatist language at a time when unity « is more necessary than ever. »
The search for the missing
The end of the regime has opened the door to terrible realities hidden behind prison cells, veritable extermination camps that Amnesty International described as « human slaughterhouses » where « torture was carried out on an industrial scale. » The Assad clan ran a perverse machine that is now beginning to be revealed worldwide following the release of the « Secret Archives of Damascus, » containing thousands of photographs and documents detailing the systematic repression, torture, and mass executions in those prisons.
These archives, containing evidence of crimes against humanity, serve as the basis for future legal proceedings. For the families of the disappeared, they relive the pain, but also fuel hopes of obtaining information about their loved ones. The search for the disappeared is an open wound in the heart of the country, one that organizations like the César Archive Families Association and the Families for Freedom Forum have been working on for years.
Syrian women : revolution, memory and pending justice
As author Rime Allaf pointed out in her article « Women, the Backbone of the Syrian Revolution , » women have been fundamental both in the revolutionary process that began in 2011 and in the subsequent work of remembrance and reparations. Today, they continue to lead these efforts, demanding concrete measures from the interim government to guarantee a thorough and transparent transitional justice process that includes victims, access to former detention centers, and guarantees of non-repetition.
Organizations like the Families for Freedom Forum have been denouncing for months a wave of kidnappings and enforced disappearances of women by armed men, especially in Tartus, Latakia, Homs, and Hama. Amnesty International has documented at least 36 cases of abducted women , most of them Alawites, who have not received adequate attention from the country’s authorities, or have even been dismissed as « false reports, » according to Al-Jumhuriya. The #StopTheAbductionofSyrianWomen campaign denounces the impunity surrounding these crimes, the stigmatization of the victims, and the lack of institutional protection.
“Due to the social stigma, a family is unlikely to dare to publish their daughter’s name and photo in the context of a missing person report unless they strongly suspect abduction. Therefore, every missing person report of a woman must be treated with the utmost seriousness,” Al-Jumhuriya points out.
Regional and global juggling
On the international stage, Syria is walking a tightrope of pressures, expectations, and threats, many of them insurmountable for a devastated country. The interim government of Ahmad al-Sharaa has been performing almost impossible balancing acts to avoid the shockwaves that any direct clash with regional neighbors or global powers could unleash. It has garnered the sympathy of the Trump administration while simultaneously trying to contain Russia, responsible for grave crimes against the Syrian population and for its continued attempts to destabilize the country during the current transition process.
Added to this is the ongoing dialogue with Erdoğan’s Turkey, the signing of investment agreements with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and the need to maintain ties with the United Arab Emirates, which for years supported the Assad regime while simultaneously positioning itself as Israel’s main ally in the region.
The impunity of the Israeli neighbor
In September 2024, Amichai Chikli, Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Anti-Semitism, declared that Israel does not recognize the sovereignty of states such as Lebanon, Iraq, or Syria. He argued that the Sykes-Picot borders « did not stand the test of time » and that sectarian divisions, topography, and military strength now define the « real borders. » Against the backdrop of the fall of the Assad regime and the fragile reconstruction process, these words confirmed an Israeli foreign policy that does not seek stability but rather openly bets on chaos in Syria.
In recent months, Israel has intensified its divide-and-conquer strategy, attempting to seduce or manipulate minorities such as the Druze and Kurds while continuing its attacks and covert operations within Syrian territory. Israeli soldiers have been documented firing on local populations, and attempts by settler groups to establish themselves beyond Quneitra have been documented—tactics reminiscent of those commonly used in Palestine and Lebanon.
The Syrian government has refused to sign the Abraham Accords, which aim to normalize relations with Israel, despite having entered into negotiations, and has appealed to the mediation of Trump, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia to halt incursions and attempts to divide the country. But the forces are disproportionate, and Israel’s impunity continues to limit Syria’s room for maneuver as it tries to rebuild while facing threats from the best-equipped and most unpunished army.
To protect freedom of the press
In this scenario, it is essential to guarantee freedom of expression and of the press, as Syrian journalists pointed out at a meeting held on November 19 in Damascus.
“Although it’s a cliché, and I detest clichés, when I paused for a moment today to catch my breath amidst the whirlwind of daily life, I couldn’t help but think : this truly is a historic moment,” remarked Zeina Shahla, a Syrian journalist and correspondent for Al-Jumhuriya, during one of the roundtables at the event. The current state of freedom of expression in the country was debated there, with the participation of dozens of journalists, activists, representatives from the Transitional Government’s Ministry of Information, as well as Arab and European diplomats.
The participants agreed that Syrian journalists today enjoy unprecedented freedom of expression. However, this freedom is not protected by law, as the legal texts regulating media work remain the same as those left by the previous regime, criminalizing any objective journalistic work. These laws are not currently enforced, but a legislative vacuum exists that grants greater authority to executive bodies.
« Syrian journalists and defenders of freedom of expression are a social force, whose organization through professional unions and civil organizations is fundamental to ensuring the balance of power, » it was noted during the meeting, which also addressed the limits between freedom of expression and hate speech or disinformation.
« Most countries face this tension, but it is more pressing in a transitional phase like the one Syria is going through, » they stressed, emphasizing that countering disinformation and hate « is not just the responsibility of journalists, but must be a social responsibility involving civil society, religious leaders and state institutions. »
A key media ecosystem for the future
The scope for journalistic work and the spaces for expressing opinions have expanded significantly after the fall of the Assad regime, achievements that journalists seek to safeguard during the transition phase and towards a future that moves away from that Syria which Reporters Without Borders placed second to last in its press freedom ranking in 180 countries.
Following the start of the revolutionary process in 2011, a media ecosystem flourished in Syria, resulting in hundreds of local media outlets, community radio stations, magazines, media offices, and constant coverage by citizen journalists documenting the revolutionary process and the repression suffered by the population in the absence of foreign correspondents.
This flourishing now includes spaces for calm and in-depth debate on issues such as transitional justice, broadcast on channels like SyriaTelevision , followed by thousands of Syrians from inside and outside the country, which were unthinkable just a year ago.
Also through projects like SyriaUntold, Enab Baladi, and the aforementioned Al-Jumhuriya, which carry out crucial work in documenting local progress and setbacks, as well as analyzing regional and global power dynamics. This work demonstrates the value of the Syrian experience, the agency of the Syrian people, and their capacity to document the current process underway in the country, to honor its memory, and to contribute to a future in which no sector prevails over the demands for justice, freedom, and dignity that the Syrian people have so long championed.
