Fayez Sara: Syria working towards overcoming Assad legacy

There has been a surge in arrests of criminals from the former regime, particularly the pillars of its military forces and figures within its security apparatuses. These arrests have been made on the basis on their involvement in vicious crimes: arrests, torture, killings, forced disappearances, and other horrors that are difficult even to imagine, especially those of members of the military medical service, including doctors, technicians, and administrators. One would assume that such people would be the last to become involved in these criminal networks, but they added another layer of human rights violations through the desecration of corpses as they oversaw the trade in human organs.

Following the habit of my profession, I followed the names of those being arrested, along with the positions they had held within the structures of the regime’s army and security services, and the roles they played in these crimes. Moreover, I was searching for specific names of people I knew personally or had encountered during my decades of contact with the regime as both a journalist and an opposition figure. Many of them had caused me great harm, as they did countless other Syrians. Among the most painful of these experiences was the second arrest of my son, Wissam, in 2013, which ended with his death under torture in Branch 215 of the Syrian Military Intelligence Directorate.

Accountability is needed to signal that what happened in Syria must never be repeated there or anywhere else.

Many of the officers’ names I followed were unfamiliar figures, which is natural since the majority of intelligence officers in Syria lived in the shadows, without photographs, names, relationships, or contact unless it was absolutely necessary. The primary reason for this is to conceal their identities and conceal any information that could expose them and reveal the crimes and dark deeds they committed- acts they wished never to be associated with or to be known to the public. Under both Hafez al-Assad and Bashar al-Assad, the regime was brimming with crimes and criminal acts committed by its officials, especially officers from the army and security services- crimes that the world came to know extensively thanks to the Syrian revolution and the sacrifices Syrians made to overthrow the regime.

Branch 215 is known as the “Branch of Death” because of the immense number of detainees who died in its custody. Deaths increased either as a result of torture or because of the appalling health and living conditions there, which led to deadly diseases such as tuberculosis and hepatitis. According to testimonies from dozens of former detainees interviewed after their release, prisoners suffering from such illnesses were denied access to treatment. Former inmates estimated that dozens died there every day. The Caesar Syria photographs alone show that 3,532 victims came from this branch.

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We continue to await the arrest of some of the implicated officers, and hope the security forces will succeed in arresting them so that they may receive punishment for what they had done to their people. They must be brought before the judiciary and tried for their crimes- not out of revenge, but in the name of justice. Accountability is needed to signal that what happened in Syria must never be repeated there or anywhere else. Moreover, holding criminals accountable constitutes an essential step in transitional justice- a principle supported not only by the overwhelming majority of Syrians, but also one that represents a point of international consensus, enshrined in the United Nations resolutions concerning Syria, most notably United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254. That resolution outlined the framework for transitional justice, particularly emphasizing accountability for all who committed crimes against Syrians, uncovering the fate of the disappeared, strengthening civil peace, repairing harm, and compensating victims, steps necessary for normalizing Syrian life and rebuilding Syria.

This matter now requires faster steps from the Syrian government toward completing the urgent and essential pillars of transitional justice, and toward strengthening Syrians’ hopes of overcoming the legacy of the Assad regime and moving toward a better life. That is the aim and aspiration of most Syrians, if not all of them.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Maghrebi.org. Fayez Sara is a Syrian journalist and writer, serving as Political advisor of the Syrian Opposition Coalition. This article was originally published on Asharq al-Awsat.
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