The prolonged path to accountability in Syria

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Eleven years after Syrians took to the streets in protest against Bashar al-Assad’s government, the prospects for holding the regime accountable for its heinous crimes face multiple problems but avenues are in process, according to a panel of experts hosted on Thursday by the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP), a think tank working to center local perspectives in the policy discourse on the Middle East and North Africa.

Moderated by TIMEP’s Mai El-Sadany, panelists included Mouaz Moustafa (Executive Director, Syrian Emergency Task Force), Leila Sibai (legal investigator), Kholoud Helmi (Syrian journalist and human rights activist), and Fritz Streiff (founder of the Syrian atrocity podcast Branch 251). Over the course of the conversation, they discussed the pathways open for achieving accountability in Syria, shared their reflections on how the Assad regime and other perpetrators can be held responsible for their crimes - past and current - and expressed their thoughts on the role of the international community in supporting the Syrian people’s call for justice, or lack thereof.

According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), over 100,000 people are still forcibly detained, having been arrested between March 2011 and August 2021; the overwhelming majority at the hands of the Syrian government.

Over 500,000 people have been killed in Syria's war, with the Assad regime and allied militias responsible for the majority of civilian deaths. There have been tentative hopes that the war launched by Russia - the Syrian regime's main backer - in Ukraine in recent weeks might rekindle some interest in the cause of Syria’s people. Eleven years after Syrians took to the streets to protest for freedom and justice in the face of brutal state violence, the world appears to have turned its eyes away, and various actors are seeking to normalise relations with the regime: some of its Arab neighbors are advocating for Syria to be reintroduced into the Arab League, and a handful of countries have reopened embassies in Damascus. 

This summer, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned eight Syrian prisons run by the Assad regime’s intelligence apparatus as well as the Syrian armed group Ahrar al-Sharqiya, stating that at least 14,000 Syrians have been tortured to death. But globally - for Syrian survivors and victims - avenues for justice are limited. Those inside the country continue to face torture, arbitrary detention, and surveillance at the hands of the state. 

Opening the panel, El-Sadany drew attention to this “concerning” normalisation, and the culture of impunity bred by the lack of intervention from the international community. She praised the Syrian activists working to carve out routes for accountability regarding human rights abuses perpetrated by the regime and other actors - inside the courtrooms, but also through fact finding, story-telling and archiving. Directed by Anne Daly and Ronan L Tynan, for example, the recently released film Bringing Assad To Justice is available to watch now.

Kholoud Helmi, co-founder and board member of the Syrian EnabBaladi newspaper, established in 2011, witnessed the shooting of peaceful demonstrators, arbitrary arrests and massacres committed by the Assad regime in Darayya and surrounding towns first-hand. Her brother was arrested in 2012 for helping internally displaced persons from Homs. 

“All too often accountability is buried in political interests,” she said, explaining why she made the difficult decision to share her own story, and dedicate her work to achieving accountability for those personally impacted by forced disappearances. Syrian demonstrators have faced a brutal response by security forces on the streets. Media coverage - and particular coverage in Arabic - was also highly repressed from the beginning of the uprising, she told the audience, with international journalists who smuggled themselves into the country targeted by the regime, such as the late reporter Marie Colvin.

Syrians themselves thus had to be the eyewitnesses, she continued, with the ability to connect with others and tell their stories to locals and the international community. Now, living outside the country, Helmi’s search for accountability is deeply personal, and she continues to document the atrocities in her city and those who disappeared for protesting against the regime. 

Highlighting the increase in foreign courts holding trials against Syrian perpetrators, Leila Sibai, who works as an independent legal investigator on case-files pertaining to war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Syria, told the panel that the application of universal jurisdiction to try crimes against humanity is currently one of the only ways to achieve legal justice for crimes committed in Syria.

Related: On the 11th anniversary of the Syrian uprising, 90 percent live in poverty

Implemented differently across countries, the logic is that such crimes impact the entire international community and cases are selected on their broader significance. Although Syria is not a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), foreign courts can bring cases where there is evidence - and in recent cases, perpetrators. 

In a landmark trial for crimes against humanity committed by a Syrian secret intelligence officer of Assad's regime, a German court in the city of Koblenz in January found 58-year-old Anwar Raslan guilty of torture, sexual violence, and 27 murders at the notorious Branch 251 prison in Damascus, sentencing him to life in prison: the first trial worldwide on state torture in Syria.

Germany's laws permit serious crimes, such as crimes against humanity, to be tried regardless of German association with the crimes. The al-Khatib trial in Koblenz is based on the principle of universal jurisdiction, allowing the prosecution of significant crimes such as such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity affect the international community as a whole. Over the 107 trial days at the regional court, survivors described how they were arrested, blindfolded, beaten and taken to overcrowded cells at Branch 251.

The main significance of this trial, Sibai said, was its first step on the path to justice as an attempt to put an end to the impunity for such crimes in Syria. Although Anwar defected from the regime in 2012, and was not of the highest position in the regime, the verdict nonetheless constituted a step forward in justice for so many victims. In addition, she continued, the trial opened up a conversation among the Syrian diaspora over ways to achieve justice.

The issues with the trial, several panelists raised, was the limited access to the Syrian diaspora in the trial - which was held in a German court, with German judges, in German. There must be a better way to include Syrian legal professionals in the process, Sibai mused. Unlike broader documentation, litigation and legal avenues require a huge amount of specifics - and this inevitably impacts who gets to tell their story, which survivors are enabled to achieve justice and, of course, the political narrative and subsequent role of the political community. 

Discussing the impact of politics - from the leadership of the United Nations, to political funding, and the advocacy that has paved the groundwork for accountability over the last 11 years, for example - Mouaz Moustafa stressed its importance in providing justice. “Politics is everything,” he said. Looking at the German court, the road to Koblenz started years before - and universal jurisdiction also based upon the interests of the German state, too.

In the US, there are at least 4 civil cases underway, he added, and potential criminal cases too - but these require political will. Moustafa is working to push bills through the US Congress to enable them to go after war criminals. Accountability, too, means challenging the “normalisation” of the Assad regime, he said.

Atrocity crimes and human rights lawyer Fritz Streiff founded the Branch 251 podcast to unpack what was happening in the Koblenz trial and to allow those most affected to follow the case, he told the audience. Now, with its conclusion, he is working on a new podcast to be released in the Autumn.

Discussing the podcast idea, he said that the lack of access to updates about the accountability prompted him to create the podcast, which was designed to be in English and in Arabic, and a form of outreach to the Syrian community. In his own words, “a side project on a shoestring budget” - and one that proved invaluable to many.

Despite all the shortcomings, Streiff said, the trial can be seen as a success. With five judges, and over the course of almost five years, it delivered a final, concrete judgment - even if it is against just two individuals who are not, of course, entirely responsible for everything over the past eleven years. 

“It would be illusionary to think that regional courts can deliver meaningful justice for crimes committed in far away countries,” he continued. “It would be an illusion to think this would take it to a satisfactory level. Even at the international criminal court, they will always be far away from where the crimes were committed.”

In many ways, court-based criminal justice is exactly that - it can never be holistic justice. Furthermore, Streiff said, an attempt at finding a judicial truth is not the same as attempting to find an actual truth. Perhaps we shouldn’t have too high expectations and illusions as to what it can deliver.

Looking ahead to the next decade, Sibai advised that court proceedings should be Syrian-led and survivor focused. Legal communities are best placed to facilitate the process, she added, as justice will come from the community. She also expressed her mindfulness of including women and women’s perspectives at every step of the process - something they’re keen to see more of in the future.

Selecting cases has been a bit too systematic in terms of access to information, and perhaps another way of approaching it is the impact of the crimes on their lives. All panelists agreed that the Assad regime remains a key threat to Syrians who might return. In regards to Ukraine, selective accountability has allowed Putin and Assad to get away with certain crimes. “If we had held them to account earlier, there is a chance he would not have been able to act as he currently is in Ukraine,” Sibai said.

For Mouaz, “any country that even considers normalising their ties with the Assad regime is essentially handing a medal to it.” He called on the US to call out countries that are seeking to normalise relations with the regime, much less provide them with funding, military equipment, and broader support. Another way to provide justice, he said, was the idea of having a law that enables citizens to sue for events that occurred before they were US citizens as if they were US citizens at the time.

Fritz added that it is much harder to ignore what the Assad regime is doing now that these cases have been concluded, and greater evidence is available. This can also contribute to the writing of history - which will be out there for future generations to study, he said. Although, as ever, issues pertain: there are no transcripts of the court hearing or live-streams of the sessions for those who were unable to come to Germany, nor for those who only speak Arabic. 

Therefore, court-based justice can never be complete, he said, and criminal justice isn’t for everyone. “A lot of people who witnessed these crimes may not want to pursue the process, and the investment of emotions and energy that is needed,” he added. “People have other priorities.”

Kholoud highlighted the important role of survivors and their remarkable contributions over the last eleven years. “Their voice and vision should drive the accountability process,” she said, expressing her frustration that no level of justice has as yet been achieved. “We are still shouting, using microphones for others to hear us. No actions have been taken by the big players, by the international community, to take any measures against the Syrian regime or perpetrators,” Kholoud told the audience. “Everyone knows there are detainees in Syria. Who is listening to us? Who is taking action for us? We are always at the bottom of the agenda.”

“Assad will never be held accountable if they don’t have the will or the determination,” she said. “Although it’s politically complicated, after eleven years Syrians need actions more than words.”

The impact of disinformation - including from pro-Assad accounts and Kremlin social media - is also causing significant damage to interpretations of the conflict, the panel agreed. According to Fritz, the effects of this are visible in Ukraine today. The verification of videos by groups such as Syrian Archive and Bellingcat are vital, and the ease with which false visual material can be created is concerning and media outlets must play a role in the verification.

In his concluding remarks, Fritz lamented the biggest tragedy of the last eleven years as being how the international community - under the face of the UN - has completely failed. “The system either needs a total overhaul or to be broken down and rebuilt in a different way,” he said. For Mouaz, it matters to care. “Syrians are the most displaced people in the world, they have suffered the worst crimes of the 21st century, and it’s only going to get worse. Ukraine is a result of inaction in Syria,” she said.

“No meaningful justice will be achieved until Assad is gone,” Leila said. On this eleventh anniversary, there is a risk of overlooking justice and accountability efforts in Syria, and accepting the normalisation of others. The panel offered a timely reminder that as long as justice for Syrians in Syria is impossible, the situation will remain incomplete.

The Syria Justice and Accountability Centre issued a statement on Thursday pressing for greater accountability for Russian crimes in Syria and Ukraine, calling on the wider community to consider the Syrian experience as instructive, and drawing parallels to Russian targets against civilians and patterns of attack. “To maintain the international legal order and to ensure that perpetrators are held to account, the hard work of preserving evidence must start now,” it said. The panel's comments suggest there may be a long road ahead for the pursuit justice.

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