Syria

Communities

Main languages: Arabic (official), Kurdish (Kurmanji dialect), Armenian, Aramaic, Circassian, Turkish

Main religions: Sunni Islam (74 per cent), Alawi Islam and other Muslim (including Isma’ili and Ithna’ashari or Twelver Shi’a) (13 per cent), Christianity (including Greek Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, Maronite, Syrian Catholic, Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic) (10 per cent), Druze (3 per cent); other smaller communities, such as Yezidis.

Demographic data for Syria is unreliable, and the present locations of minority communities is similarly hard to establish due to the considerable disruption the country experienced under Bashar al-Assad’s rule. His regime’s violent crackdown on anti-government protests in 2011 led to a civil war that lasted more than a decade. Syria’s population was approximately 21 million people in 2011. By 2022, the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR estimated that over 12 million Syrians remained displaced in the region, with 6.8 million internally displaced and 5.4 million living as refugees in neighbouring countries.

The Israeli air assault and ground invasion of Lebanon in October 2024 further affected the demographics of Syria. As of mid-November, over 470,000 people had left Lebanon for Syria, with 71 per cent being Syrian nationals and 29 per cent Lebanese, according to the UN Population Fund UNFPA.

Syria has always been a mosaic of minorities. Some are defined primarily by religion, others by ethnicity, while others are relatively recent immigrants, with many cross-border communities also having a presence in neighbouring countries. Physical and human geography have been major determining factors in Syria’s social fabric which has been shaped by city, desert, mountain and sea. Until the present century, social divides between town dwellers, farmers and Bedouin, and the conflict between the latter two, were almost as important as religious differences.

In the mountain ranges stretching along the littoral and across to Mount Hermon and the Jabal Druze in south Syria, religiously ‘dissident’ communities were historically able to practice their faith in a manner that deviated from Muslim or Christian orthodoxy. On the coast a more cosmopolitan trading culture existed which had as much in common with other seafaring cultures of the Mediterranean as it had with its hinterland.

Alawi Muslims are technically Syria’s largest religious minority, although members of the community were in power under the regimes of Hafiz and Bashar al-Assad. They traditionally lived mainly in the Nusayri Mountains running parallel to the coastal plain of north-west Syria, but also on the inland plains of Homs and Hama. Smaller numbers of Isma’ili Muslims have lived for the most part in the coastal mountain range, south of the main Alawi areas. Twelver Shi’as live in a handful of communities near Homs and to the west and north of Aleppo.

Prior to the disruption following the Arab Spring, Greek Orthodox Christians and Greek Catholics were concentrated in and around Damascus, Latakia and the neighbouring coastal region. Syriac Orthodox Christians were located mainly in the Jazira region, Homs, Aleppo and Damascus, and Syrian Catholics in small communities mainly in Aleppo, Hasaka and Damascus. Historically, there was also a small community of Maronite Christians, mainly in the Aleppo region. The Maronite community, a remnant of the majority that sought safety in Mount Lebanon in the sixth century, became a minority in Syria with the establishment of Lebanon. While the community has maintained ties to Rome since the twelfth century, its liturgy is in Syriac.

The Druze community is traditionally located primarily in Jabal Druze on the southern border abutting Jordan.

There are a very small number of Yezidis, who practice a 4,000-year-old religion. Yezidis speak the Kurmanji dialect of Kurdish; some identify ethnically as Kurds, while others view themselves as having a distinct ethnic identity as Yezidis. Their numbers in Syria have declined over the years largely due to assimilation into Islam. One community living in Jabal Sim’an and the Afrin valley in north-west Syria, dated back at least to the twelfth century. A slightly larger group, composed of refugees mainly from southern Türkiye but later also some from Iraq who settled during the 1920s and 1930s, was located mainly around Hasaka in the Jazira region, north-east Syria as well as Aleppo. Following ISIS’s brutal attacks beginning in 2014 on the Yezidi community in neighbouring Iraq, the majority of Syrian Yezidis fled their homes.

Nearly all of the Jewish population that numbered around 40,000 before Israel’s establishment in 1948 have emigrated, with an estimated 100 to 200 Jews remaining by 2007, concentrated in Damascus and Aleppo. At the time of the fall of the Assad regime in 2024, only a few Jews are believed to remain in the country. While Jewish groups began settling on land in the Golan Heights in the 1880’s, a more continuous Jewish presence commenced after Israel occupied the area following the Six-Day War in 1967. This presence grew when Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, although the United Nations refused to recognize the area’s new status, and the Golan has remained under Syrian sovereignty.

Around 2-2.5 million Kurds form Syria’s largest ethnic minority. About a third of them live in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains north of Aleppo, and an equal number along the Turkish border in the Jazira region. A further 10 per cent can be found in the vicinity of Jarabulus northeast of Aleppo, and 10-15 per cent in the Hayy al-Akrad (Quarter of the Kurds) on the outskirts of Damascus. It should again be noted that these figures are likely to be outdated, given widespread fighting and displacement. In recent years, an autonomous Kurdish region has emerged in northwestern Syria, although it has not been recognized by the Syrian government.

Armenians, Circassians and Turkmens are smaller ethnic minorities. Armenians of various Christian denominations lived mainly in Aleppo, but also in Damascus and the Jazira region. Several thousand Circassians were last reported to live mostly in Damascus. They are descended from refugees who fled the Russian invasion of the North Caucasus in the latter half of the nineteenth century and settled mainly in the Jawlan (Golan) where they came into conflict with Druze. They were mobilized by the Ottomans as auxiliary forces against the Druze in 1896 and 1910, and by the French in 1925. Over half the Circassian community lost their homes when Israel captured the Golan Heights in 1967. About half the Circassians were more recently concentrated in the southwestern Hawran Province, although Al-Qunaytirah, viewed as their provincial capital, was destroyed during the October 1973 war between Israel and Syria, forcing them to relocate to Damascus. Little information is available on ethnic Turkmens in Syria, who for the most part are Sunni Muslims and many of whom have assimilated into Arab culture.

Prior to the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, there were over 526,000 Palestinians living in Syria, refugees driven off their land with the establishment of Israel in 1948 and their descendants. By 2017, the UN agency UNRWA estimated that 450,000 Palestinian refugees remained in the country with 280,000 internally displaced and 43,000 trapped in inaccessible locations. By early 2025, 438,000 Palestinians were believed by UNRWA to be living in Syria, with 60 per cent having been displaced at least once and 40 per cent estimated to remain in displacement.

After the March 2003 illegal US-UK-led invasion of Iraq, Syria took in around 1.5 million Iraqis though one Syrian NGO estimated the population to be as many as two million by August 2007. The refugees swelled Syria’s population by 8-10 per cent, and the government estimated at the time that this increase created an additional burden on public finances of one billion USD a year. Since the beginning of the unrest in Syria in March 2011, many Iraqi refugees living in Syria returned to Iraq.

Current Issues

With the opposition forces unable to win a battle of attrition against the Assad regime, Syria entered a period of stalemate until 2019, when backed by Russia, Iran and numerous Shi’a militias, government forces began closing in on Idlib province, the final opposition holdout. While all sides have committed widespread atrocities, the vast majority of civilian deaths in Syria have come at the hands of the regime, which along with Russia continued to bomb hospitals and other civilian infrastructure. While figures are impossible to verify, well over 500,000 people are estimated to have been killed with over 12 million displaced inside Syria or abroad, with Alawis, Christians (including Armenians and Assyrians), Druze, Isma’ilis, Kurds, Turkmen, Twelver Shi’a, Yezidis and others among those displaced. 

Assad’s cynical mobilization of communal anxieties amid the growing influence of extremist elements within the Syrian opposition forces resulted in an increasingly sectarian landscape – accelerated by the displacement of minorities by militant groups in areas under their control. As a result, the country’s demographics have been redrawn, with its religious minorities concentrated in the government-held areas of central and southern Syria, while in the north the population is now largely Sunni.

There is little doubt that civilians have paid the highest price in the fighting since 2011, with all the armed forces involved guilty of violating human rights standards and international humanitarian law.  The Assad regime launched destructive attacks on residential areas and targeted civilian objects such as hospitals, schools and markets. The conflict has also been characterized by widespread use of indiscriminate weapons, such as barrel bombs and prohibited chemical weapons. The Assad-led government detained thousands of opponents, many in inhumane conditions, subjected to torture and other forms of ill-treatment, and executed or forcibly disappeared. Government and anti-government forces besieged civilian areas, obstructing the supply of food, water, electricity, medical supplies and other humanitarian necessities. Furthermore, airstrikes launched by the US-led international coalition have also led to hundreds of civilian deaths, with scant efforts to investigate such incidents and provide redress to victims. 

Women are affected by the protracted conflict in particular ways. With large numbers of men killed or engaged in fighting, many women have had to support and protect their families in conflict zones. Displaced women are at constant risk of sexual assault and other types of abuse, especially when passing through checkpoints controlled by armed groups. Women attempting to leave the country with the aid of smugglers are also vulnerable to exploitation, including in some cases to sexual trafficking. Within Syria, there are also indications that sexual violence was used deliberately in the former government’s detention facilities to intimidate and punish women perceived to be associated with the opposition, whether directly or indirectly. Women raped or presumed to have been raped in detention face the risk of rejection by their family members or even ‘honour’ killing upon their release due to the cultural stigma surrounding sexual and gender-based violence.  

While religious minorities within Syria have been caught up in the violence, Assad’s opportunistic exploitation of communal fears and the deep demographic shifts wrought by the conflict saw the share of Alawis, Christians and other minorities rise significantly within territory still held by his forces, even though many decried the former government’s attempts to use minorities to bolster its legitimacy. At the same time, in addition to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of the Sunni majority to the north, millions were forced out of the country.

Syria’s Druze community, most of whom live in the southern governorate of Suweida, tried to remain neutral in the conflict, wary of coming into direct confrontation with either the Assad government or their Sunni neighbours. However, the community’s relationship with the former government remained tense due to disagreements over issues of conscription and self-protection. Druze were also regularly targeted by ISIS throughout their occupation of northern Syria.  

Christians have been less able to avoid becoming embroiled in the conflict, due to their presence in urban centres where heavy fighting took place and in northeastern regions overrun by ISIS. In opposition-controlled areas, Christians concealed their religious identity and adopted Muslim dress to avoid suspicion. Fears of extremist groups was a central factor in Christians leaving Syria. 

Yezidis were subjected to genocidal acts at the hands of ISIS, as recognized by the UN-mandated Commission of Inquiry on Syria in its June 2016 report. Many Syrian Yezidis fled their homes after learning of the group’s advance into Sinjar in August 2014, home to most of Iraq’s Yezidi population, fearing they would be subjected to similar treatment. Thousands of Iraqi Yezidis were held in ISIS captivity, many on Syrian territory, and subjected to a wide range of systematic violations including forced conversion, rape, sexual slavery, forced labour, torture and military conscription. Large numbers of Syrian Yezidis left their villages in the north to seek refuge outside of Syria.  

Alawis remained vulnerable to attacks by opposition armed groups due to their perceived association with the Assad-led government. In 2015, the leader of Jabhat al-Nusra (now called Jabhat Fateh al-Sham) called on fighters to target Alawi towns and villages in revenge for indiscriminate Russian attacks on Sunni civilians. Moreover, since many Alawis fought in the former government’s armed forces, the community suffered a high rate of casualties. As the war waged on, Alawi community support for Assad dwindled. In a document released in April 2016, Alawi leaders distanced themselves from the actions of his government and emphasized points of commonality between the Alawi faith and other Islamic sects in Syria. 

In the north, Syrian Kurds, supported by other minorities, defended their autonomous enclave, known as Rojava in Kurdish and established in 2012. The autonomous administration introduced positive practices respecting the rights of linguistic and religious minorities and used three official languages (Kurdish, Arabic and Aramaic). However, there were reports of Kurdish armed groups demolishing Arab and Turkmen homes in the region and displacing their residents. 

Women from the Kurdish minority played a dynamic role in the political and military affairs of the autonomous region, making inroads in terms of gender equality unheard of in the rest of the region (see above). Through the Kongreya Star, the umbrella organization for the women’s movement in Rojava, women played coordinating roles in the management of education, public health, the economy, community dispute resolution and citizens’ defense. Laws stipulating strict penalties for polygamy and underage marriage were also passed. Many Kurdish women viewed women’s empowerment as inseparable from the larger liberation struggle from repressive ISIS, other extremist and Assad regime policies. 

The impact of the fourteen-year long Syrian conflict has been felt by millions of civilians forced into exile from their country. As of June 2024, the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR reported that there were 6.4 million Syrian refugees, which, alongside Afghanistan, put the country as the world’s largest source of refugees. The war’s effects in the region have been profound, particularly in Lebanon, Syria’s smallest neighbour, which hosted the highest per capita number of refugees with some 1.5 million Syrians. Life continued in a state of limbo for most refugees during this period, with many longing to return while others remained in exile out of fear of persecution.

The events of 8 December 2024 heralded a new albeit uncertain era for Syrians, including those belonging to ethnic and religious minority communities. The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad was achieved by a coalition of opposition forces and was followed by his escape to Russia. The swift turnaround came as a surprise to many and began at the end of November 2024, as the opposition took advantage of Assad’s main allies having to focus their attention elsewhere. Russia was involved in its own conflict against Ukraine, and Iran had been drawn into Israel’s assault on Gaza and Lebanon. The regime’s collapse came two weeks after rebels launched an offensive, quickly taking key cities – Aleppo, Hama, Homs – on their way to Damascus. The end of Assad’s rule brought much hope to Syrians inside the country and around the world but also some fears at what the change may entail.

The new government is led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Sunni Islamist movement. Formed in 2017, HTS under its leader Ahmad al-Sharaa is a coalition of Islamist militias, including Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, previously known as Jabhat al-Nusra, which had been affiliated with al-Qaeda. The new government has not included minorities within its governance structure, although its representatives quickly reached out to Christian and Druze minority community leaders. The fall of the Assad regime has brought considerable unease to Alawis. They had provided a key source of support and the core of its military and intelligence apparatus – although many Alawi recruits would have joined simply out of a need for an income. Messages of justice and due process rather than retribution have most likely been made by the new government with the Alawi community in mind.

Another community that will be worried are Kurds. The Assad government had long suppressed Kurdish identity, including the Kurdish language. HTS’s push towards Damascus in November 2024 was conducted alongside elements of the opposition Syrian National Army, backed by Türkiye. In recent years, Turkish forces have carried out multiple attacks against the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Syria, in particular targeting the People’s Defense Units (YPG), which belong to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Turkish government views the YPG as part of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK, the Kurdish armed group with which it has been in conflict for decades. Amnesty International has documented many serious human rights violations committed by the Turkish military and its Syrian allies in their campaigns in Syria, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians as well as targeted killings.

In terms of what the future holds for Syria’s minorities, HTS’s track record in Idlib, which had already been under its control, could provide some indication. According to the International Crisis Group, HTS had initiated a dialogue with Christian community leaders while allowing Christians to celebrate Christmas and Easter since 2018. However, Human Rights Watch has recorded serious human rights violations by HTS and its allies in areas under their control.

Indeed, the fears of minority communities in the face of the new order in Syria quickly became apparent after the collapse of the Assad regime. Hundreds of Christians took to the streets of Damascus on Christmas Eve 2024, after a video was shared on social media showing fighters burning a Christmas tree in the predominantly Christian town of Suqaylabiyah, near Hama. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the fighters were foreigners belonging to the Islamist group Ansar al-Tawhid.

The fall of the Assad regime leaves Syria at a dangerous turning point because of the strong external involvement of numerous other countries in Syrian political, economic and military affairs. The Russian government will seek to maintain its military bases in Syria, although it is unclear whether it will be able to. The external priorities of Iran and Lebanon are also a factor, especially the kind of relationship that the new government may form with them. According to media reports at the time of the final assault on the Assad regime’s defenses, HTS sought to assure Iran that Shi’a sacred sites would not be damaged or destroyed. Meanwhile, at the end of 2024, Turkish-backed militias attacked Kurdish areas in northern Syria, and Israel continued a campaign of airstrikes over Syrian territory. By 15 December 2024, the conflict data-gathering agency ACLED had documented more than 300 Israeli airstrikes in Syria since the beginning of the year, of which over a third had occurred since 8 December when HTS and its coalition partners seized Damascus.

Another major issue that will affect Syria is the humanitarian crisis, given the hundreds of thousands of displaced inside the country and even greater number of refugees elsewhere. The question will be how quickly asylum countries will begin to put pressure on refugees to return. A number of governments, including France, Germany, Greece, Sweden and the United Kingdom, announced shortly after Assad’s removal from power that consideration of Syrian asylum claims would be suspended. Nevertheless, European countries have started to take steps to officially recognize the new government in Syria. Germany and France were the first countries to do so through visits to Damascus in early January 2025 by their foreign affairs ministers, who travelled to Damascus to meet Syria’s new government. This visit was the first high level diplomatic visit from the European Union, although European governments have not eased sanctions or removed their categorization of HTS as a terrorist group. The United States authorities did, however, lift the US$10 million bounty previously placed on al-Sharaa.

Background

Environment

Syria lies on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Türkiye lies to its north, Iraq to its east and south-east, Jordan to its south, and Israel to its south-west. Lebanon juts into Syria’s south-west, along the Mediterranean coast. The country consists largely of a high arid plateau, but the greener north-west and the Euphrates River valley allow extensive farming. Syria has oil and gas reserves in the north-east, but these are in decline.

History

Syria owes its configuration to the Allied partition of the Ottoman Empire after 1918, and in particular to the French administration from 1920 to 1946. Under the Ottomans, the geographical, economic and cultural concept of Syria was known as Bilad al-Sham and embraced all of modern Israel/Palestine and Lebanon as well as modern Syria.

With the defeat of the Ottomans, a congress of representatives from Greater Syria met in Damascus in 1919 and affirmed its intention to found ‘a constitutional monarchy based upon principles of democratic and broadly decentralized rule which shall safeguard the rights of minorities’. French military intervention in 1920 thwarted this intention, and Feisal, King of Syria, was driven into exile. Within a month France allocated the ports of Tripoli, Sidon and Tyre and their respective hinterlands, and the Biqa’a valley, to its creation of Greater Lebanon, and in 1939 surrendered the Sanjaq of Alexandretta (subsequently, the Hatay) to Türkiye (in violation of its obligations under the League of Nations mandate).

France played upon minority differences and ignored a more fundamental underlying common identity. It fragmented the rest of Syria into four territories: the north-western Nusayri Mountains for Alawis, Jabal Druze for Druze, and the cities of Damascus and Aleppo as two separate entities. As a result of Arab nationalist pressure, France reunited these territories in 1936. Among minorities, notably Alawis and Druze, there were divisions between those who wished to foster minority separatism, frequently the dominant chiefs for whom this guaranteed and enhanced their authority, and newly educated people of lowlier birth, who saw their future in a wider nationalist context.

France recruited members of minority communities – Alawis, Druze, Isma’ilis, Christians, Kurds and Circassians – into its local force, les Troupes Spéciales du Levant, a policy that not only caused tensions with the Sunni Arab majority but also paved the way for later minority control of Syria. Military service offered an opportunity for betterment for low-born but ambitious, often nationalist, recruits. Syria became independent in 1946. and three years later a coup installed the first in a succession of Kurdish and Arab officers in power, each of whom relied on minority or local pools of support.

In the meantime, the Ba’ath (Renaissance) Party, founded in 1940 with a socialist Arab nationalist ideology, made progress in the poorer parts of Syria, particularly the Alawi and Druze areas, and within the military. Part of its appeal to confessional minorities was its secular emphasis on the equality of all Arabs, irrespective of religion, and its view of Islam as a cultural rather than religious component of Arab national identity.

In 1963 the Ba’ath Party seized power, purging the army of ‘disloyal elements’ and replacing them with officers drawn disproportionately from the Alawi and Druze communities. By 1966 many Sunnis had been removed from positions of responsibility. A Druze attempt to displace Alawi ascendancy in the Ba’ath Party failed in 1966, and many Druze were purged from the security forces. Although power was already concentrated in the hands of a largely Alawi leadership, Isma’ilis were the next to be purged from the military.

While Syria planned an attack with other Arab countries in 1967, Israel launched a pre-emptive strike. At the end of the Six-Day War, Israel occupied a part of Syria, namely the Golan Heights.

In 1970 Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad came to power in a coup against a fellow Alawi and formally became President in 1971. Although many posts in the armed forces and security apparatus were held by Sunnis, Alawis from Assad’s own family, tribe and region held the essential keys to control of the state.

A Syrian and Egyptian attempt to regain lost territory through a surprise attack on Israel in 1973 was defeated. Israel subsequently annexed the Golan Heights in 1981 and began settling Jews there in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The United Nations refused to recognize the Israeli annexation.

From 1979 the regime began to face a serious Sunni revivalist challenge, as civil disobedience spread from city to city. In 1982 the Syrian military suppressed an uprising organized by the Muslim Brotherhood in the city of Hama, reportedly killing up to 20,000 and causing mass destruction. Much of the Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership fled the country.

Hafez al-Assad ruled until his death in 2000, when he was succeeded by his son, Bashar. After initial hopes of political liberalization, Bashar al-Assad continued his father’s heavy-handed tactics. Tension between Syria and western countries grew following the March 2003 US/UK-led invasion of Iraq, which prompted waves of Iraqi refugees to enter Syria.

Considered one of the most repressive regimes in the Arab world, the Syrian authorities brutally suppressed a Kurdish uprising in 2004, which began as a reaction to the abuses waged against the population of Kurds living in Syria’s Kurdish areas. It is widely believed that the uprising was sparked by an incident at Qamishli stadium before a football game, when Arab Ba’athists supported by Syrian security forces clashed with Kurdish fans.

Following the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005, protests against Syrian forces in Lebanon caused the government to withdraw them. Events in Lebanon appeared to provide a boost to opposition groups in Syria itself. Syrian government foreign policy – which has focused on supporting armed groups in Iraq and fueling unrest in Lebanon and other neighbouring countries, especially after 2005 – intensified the international isolation of Syria.

In March 2011, inspired by popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, anti-government protests broke out in the city of Deraa in the south. Security forces opened fire on unarmed crowds, killing several people. Unrest quickly spread across the country. Towns such as Deraa, Homs and Douma were besieged for days as President Bashar al-Assad sent troops and tanks to quell protests, killing hundreds of unarmed civilians. Men were rounded up in night-time raids, and electricity and communication lines were cut. What began as a peaceful uprising devolved into civil war as military defectors joined the opposition to Assad, forming the Free Syrian Army.

Over time, the conflict evolved to include an increasing number of parties and took on greater sectarian dimensions, fueled by government rhetoric about fighting religious extremism, the composition of armed forces on both sides, and international influence. The Assad regime was backed by Iran, Russia and Hezbollah in Lebanon, while the opposition was supported by several countries including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye. A number of other armed groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (previously called Jabhat al-Nusra), also joined the fighting against the government. The conflict was marked by grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, including widespread torture, rape and enforced disappearances, the shelling of entire neighborhoods, the targeting of civilian infrastructure, and the use of chemical weapons. As of the end of 2016, more than 4.8 million Syrians had become refugees and 6.3 million were internally displaced.

Governance

The regime of Hafez al-Assad (1971-2000) maintained its position by tight security control, which led to widespread human rights abuses. Generally speaking, these were applied at an individual level, with no specific minority targeted for persecution. In fact, minorities were sometimes thought of as allies of the regime against the majority population, and this led at times to privileges. Technically it was an offence to ‘incite strife among the various sects or elements of the nation’ (Press Code of 1948) or to carry out ‘sectarian activities’ (Law of Associations and Private Societies, 1958).

Assad’s government continued the policy of its predecessors in using one group against another or applying pressure on any minority which demonstrated political cohesion, ensuring that no community in Syria had the ability to disrupt Alawi control. Crudely, the heart of the regime lay in the overlap among four ‘circles of power’: the army, the Ba’ath Party, the Alawi community and the Assad family. Under this system, Syria fell into deepening poverty despite its oil exports.

Upon Hafez al-Assad’s death in 2000, his son Bashar became President and remained in power until his overthrow by a popular uprising in December 2024. He made initial moves to ease the stifling controls of his father, including through the release of hundreds of political prisoners and an expansion of civil liberties, often referred to as the ‘Damascus Spring’. However, the new policy of liberalization suddenly reversed in February 2001, as civil society leaders and reformist politicians were arrested and promised economic reforms were jettisoned. A state of emergency declared in 1963 on the grounds of a threat posed by Israel, had allowed security services to operate nearly unchecked against regime opponents, which continued through Bashar’s presidency. On 27 May 2007, Bashar al-Assad was re-elected to a second seven-year term as President, winning 97 per cent of votes in a nationwide referendum. In reality, there was no democratic element involved, and the entire exercise was controlled by the regime.

Women enjoyed a measure of emancipation under Ba’athist rule, with some elected to parliament and others appointed to senior professional positions. However, laws remained in place providing that rapists be acquitted if they marry their victims, and women could not travel without authorization of their husbands. Social attitudes toward women varied tremendously, especially in the countryside.

In an attempt to stave off the uprising in 2011, the government undertook limited reforms to placate opponents, including by finally lifting the almost 50-year-old state of emergency. Regardless, security forces escalated the use of violent and repressive measures against unarmed civilian protesters. In 2012, a new Constitution came into force after being approved through a referendum. Whereas the 1973 Constitution named the Ba’ath Party as the leading party in society and the state, the new Constitution provided for a multi-party system and allowed candidates to run for elections without the approval of the Ba’ath Party. The presidential term was capped at seven years with one further re-election opportunity. Like the previous Constitution, the head of state was still required to be Muslim, but Islam was not enshrined as the religion of the state.

The presidential election held on 3 June 2014 in government-controlled areas (roughly 40 per cent of Syrian territory) was the first in Syrian history in which multiple candidates stood for election. Bashar al-Assad won 88.7 per cent of the votes in the election, which was dismissed as illegitimate by international observers. The opposition continued to call for democracy and freedom and an end to the regime, but despite economic sanctions and pressure from the international community to step down, Assad refused to relinquish power voluntarily.

Parallel governance structures emerged as a consequence, and the Assad government lost its legitimacy. The Syrian National Coalition, an umbrella group representing the opposition, was formed in late 2012 and established the Syrian Interim Government. It was recognized as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people by a large number of states and was given Syria’s seat in the Arab League.  In opposition-controlled areas of Syria, local councils functioned as effective governing structures in place of the Assad government. Local councils played leading roles in service delivery, with established formalized structures and procedures, and attempts to encourage participatory and inclusive governance. However, resource constraints prevented them from developing systematic, long-term plans.

The Kurdish Democratic Union Party established autonomous rule in the self-declared Democratic Federal System of Northern Syria (later known as the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria [AANES]; also known as Rojava). In 2016, a constitutional blueprint was approved for the region, in which it was portrayed as a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, democratic society. The region introduced positive practices in terms of women’s empowerment, with all civil society and governing bodies required by law to have at least 40 per cent female membership; and administrative organs, economic projects and civil society organizations were required to be headed by male and female co-chairs. Through the Kongreya Star, the umbrella organization for the women’s movement in Rojava, women played coordinating roles in the management of education, public health, the economy, community dispute resolution, and citizens’ defense. Neither the Assad government nor the opposition Syrian National Coalition recognized the legitimacy of the northern federal region.

Assad’s hold on power in Syria quickly crumbled at the end of 2024. Continued support by former allies Iran and Russia finally proved elusive as their attention and resources were focused on conflicts elsewhere. Following a rapid advance by a coalition led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who are Sunni Islamists, the Assad regime collapsed in December 2024. HTS was established in January 2017 by its leader Ahmad al-Sharaa and includes several Islamist anti-government militias, led by the organization earlier known as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham or Jabhat al-Nusra, which had been an al-Qaeda affiliate. The new government has not included minorities within its governance structure, but in the immediate aftermath of Assad’s overthrow, HTS reportedly sought to provide assurances to prominent Christian and Druze community leaders.

Contacts

Minority organizations

Action Group for Palestinians of Syria

Website: https://actionpal.org.uk/ar/

Centre for Armenian Information and Advice

 Website:   https://caia.org.uk/

Institute of Isma’ili Studies

Website: https://www.iis.ac.uk/

Kurdish Human Rights Project

Website:  https://www.khrp.org/

Other organizations

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

Website: https://www.syriahr.com/en/

Al-Ameen for Humanitarian Support

Website: https://alameen.ngo/

Contact: [email protected]

Bahar Organization

Website: https://bahar.ngo/

Syrian NGO Alliance (SNA)

Website: https://syrianna.org/  

Contact:  [email protected]

Syrian Society for Social Development

Website: https://sssd-ngo.org/