Survivors Search for Justice in Post-Civil War Syria

Fatmeh Shameh cowered in a dark, cold prison cell in Mezzeh, Damascus, as a woman in her 20s walked in with a pair of scissors. Known to prisoners simply as Munira, the woman announced herself as a hairdresser and asked if anyone wanted a haircut. 

A few of Shameh’s fellow prisoners agreed, but Shameh, sensing something wrong, refused to go. After all, the woman had refused to call her by anything except the number 502 — the identification number Shameh was assigned when then Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s regime first threw her into the widely feared Air Force Intelligence detention center. 

“She was relentless,” Shameh said. “You couldn’t ever ask her for anything as she’d insult you immediately.” Because Shameh was taken for a prisoner exchange, her role as a bargaining chip shielded her from the brunt of Munira’s brutality. Still, her time in prison took a permanent toll on her mental health and familial relationships. 

“I was away from my children for two years, and now, they’re different around me,” she explained, breaking down into tears. Since leaving prison, she added, her son “doesn’t feel like I’m his mother. He refuses to come near me; he never does.”

In December 2024, Syria’s civil war came to an abrupt end as rebel factions led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) took over the capital Damascus in a blitz advance from the northwestern province of Idlib. Since then, the country has established a transitional government and a constitutional declaration for what is supposed to be a five-year transitional period. 

The Assad family’s rule was marked by enforced disappearances of thousands of Syrians, torture in prisons, chemical warfare against civilian populations, and indiscriminate bombing — most of which occurred during the civil war. After the regime fell, Assad and his family fled to Russia, where they have been living since. 

Now, in post-Assad Syria, transitional justice is one of the main challenges facing Syria’s new authorities. In recent months, the interior ministry has carried out a slate of high-profile arrests targeting regime-era criminals. 

Among those on trial is Atef Najib, Assad’s cousin and the former head of security in the southern province of Daraa’s political directorate. Najib has been charged with a set of crimes including murder and torture. He’s also accused of directing the arrests and torture of boys who wrote anti-regime slogans on a school wall in 2011, an inciting incident for the widespread protests that eventually grew into the country’s 14-year civil war. 

In May 2025, a presidential decree established the National Commission for Transitional Justice (NCTJ), a financially, politically, and administratively independent body tasked with investigating human rights violations committed by all parties between 1970 and the end of the Assad regime.

Nearly a year and a half after the former regime’s collapse, many Syrians believe Assad-era criminals have continued to walk free, attempting to evade capture at the hands of security forces. 

Shameh, for her part, was “shocked” when she saw the news of Mohammed’s arrest. “She’s a big criminal,” she said. “How could she stay [in Damascus]? Under Assad, if you had even a relative [in the opposition], you’d be scared to go around.” 

The way Shameh sees it, Mohammed is “the epitome of a criminal,” and her actions weren’t limited to the prisons. “I was happy when I saw she was arrested, but honestly, I cried that day, as all my memories from prison returned.” 

Hiba Zayadin, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa desk, attended the second session of Atef Najib’s trial. There, she explained, the judge invoked customary international law, wherein international law supersedes Syrian law. The move marked an “important first step,” she said, but questions remain about how it would play out in the courtroom.

“The gap between invoking [customary international law] and applying it rigorously is significant,” Zayadin said. “There is no functioning parliament to enact legislation … and these trials are proceeding while the transitional justice law that should govern them is still being drafted. That is where the legitimate criticism that this process is being rushed is coming from.”

Mustafa admitted that there are still shortcomings in Syrian law, but said that the commission is attempting to rectify them. “Syrian law does not mention anything about war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes of genocide, or the grave crimes of kidnapping, forced disappearance, torture, and rape,” he added. “Therefore, we have prepared a draft of a new draft law, focusing on all international standards, whether international humanitarian law, the Rome Statute, or the four Geneva Conventions, in a national context.” 

This draft law is pending approval from the next legislative council, which has yet to be formed due to an ongoing process of integrating parts of the country. Those include the northeastern territories once under the control of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and the southern province of Sweida.

Still, within the country, calls for Assad-era criminals to face justice are widespread. 

Meanwhile, she argued, there remains “ambiguity” over whether the current transitional justice law draft is “comprehensive.” She added, “Critically, the process must not prioritize one category of victims over another. Accountability has to extend to all serious crimes committed in Syria, regardless of who committed them.”

Meanwhile, many survivors are trying to turn the page on their old life and move on, but the ghosts of the long civil war continue to haunt them. 

“Sometimes when I missed my children I wondered why I was involved in this affair at all for no fault of mine,” Shameh said. “The pain is unforgettable, impossible. It’s a huge wound inside us, and we can’t get out. I feel like I’m sometimes trapped inside, like I can’t get out of this.”