Syria’s transition hinges on justice for all, UN Human Rights Council hears
UN investigators told the Human Rights Council that Syria’s transition requires justice, inclusion and guarantees against renewed violations, citing ongoing violence and institutional gaps nearly two years after the Assad regime’s fall.
The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria emphasized that a lasting transition hinges on comprehensive accountability, inclusion and guarantees that violations will not recur, as it presented its latest findings to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. The investigators acknowledged progress such as the establishment of a legislative body and constitutional court but stressed the challenges of building rights-respecting institutions amid a legacy of atrocities and persistent violence. They pointed to recent clashes in early 2025, including in Sweida and along the coast, as evidence that reconciliation remains distant without addressing both past and ongoing abuses.
Commissioner Monia Ammar highlighted hundreds of missing people and ongoing violence, including incidents involving the Kurdish-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in January 2025, as obstacles to reconciliation. The investigators welcomed limited engagement with authorities but noted that current trials are insufficient to deliver justice for widespread abuses committed since the conflict began in 2011 under the Assad dictatorship.
The Commission reported deep concern over Israeli military activity in Syria, including ground incursions and detentions, with 49 people held as of September, some incommunicado, and allegations of war crimes. It also cited fragile civic space, gender-based harms, instability in Sweida and the post-conflict detention crisis in the northeast as critical human rights challenges facing the transition.
The briefing addressed the worsening conditions at the Al Rawj camp in northeast Syria, home to over 2,000 people, mostly women and children with alleged ISIL ties, and called for its immediate closure and repatriation of foreign nationals. It also highlighted the detention of more than 100 foreign children since 2019 and expressed alarm over the mass forcible transfer of over 5,700 men and boys to Iraq by United States forces earlier this year.