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There has been a varying nature of human rights under various governments that ruledSyria since the French colonial rule in Syria starting in the 1920s.
From the early 1920s until 1946, Syria and Lebanon were under the control of aFrench Mandate, officially ratified by theLeague of Nations on 29 September 1923.[1] Human rights concerns during this period included the colonialist treatment of theDruze within theirautonomous state in the southern portion of the mandate, as prisoners and peasants there were often used for forced labor.[2]
During theGreat Revolt, French military forces sieged much of Damascus and the countryside,[3] killing at least 7,000 rebels and displacing over 100,000 civilians. Authorities would publicly display mutilated corpses in central squares within Damascus and villages throughout Syria as a means of intimidating opponents of the government.[4] In 1926, the Damascus military court executed 355 Syrians without any legal representation.[5] Hundreds of Syrians were sentenced to death in absentia, prison terms of various lengths, and life imprisonment with hard labour.
Additionally, it was during this period that Syrian Women's Rights groups began to assert themselves, led by individuals likeNaziq al-Abid.[6][7]
Jews in Syria have been discriminated against, especially since theestablishment of the State of Israel in 1948. In 1948, Jews were banned from leaving the country and from selling their property. In 1953, all Jewish bank accounts were frozen and Jewish property confiscated. In 1954, Jews were temporarily permitted to emigrate, but they had to leave all their property to the government[8]
Thecoup d'etat in 1963 staged by theMilitary Committee of theSyrian Ba'ath party overthrew theSecond Syrian Republic headed by PresidentNazim al-Qudsi, ushering in decades-longBaathist rule. The new regime implemented social engineering policies such as large-scale confiscation of properties, state directed re-distribution of lands and wealth, massivecensorship, elimination of independent publishing centres, nationalization of banks, education system and industries. Astate of emergency was declared which abolished all other political parties and bestowed sweeping powers upon the military; effectively ruling the country aspolice state. Purges were carried out throughout the civil society, bureaucracy; and the army was packed with party loyalists.Syrian Ba'athists were highly influenced byAkram Hawrani'sArab Socialist party which adhered toMarxism.[9]
In March 1964, Jews were banned from traveling more than 5 kilometres (3 mi) from their hometowns.[10] Jews were not allowed to work for the government or banks, could not acquire drivers' licenses, and were banned from purchasing property. Although Jews were prohibited from leaving the country, they were sometimes allowed to travel abroad for commercial or medical reasons. Any Jew granted clearance to leave the country had to leave behind a bond of $300–$1,000 and family members to be used as hostages to ensure they returned. An airport road was paved over the Jewish cemetery inDamascus, and Jewish schools were closed and handed over to Muslims. The Jewish Quarter of Damascus was under constant surveillance by the secret police, who were present at synagogue services, weddings,bar mitzvahs, and other Jewish gatherings. The secret police closely monitored contact between Syrian Jews and foreigners and kept a file on every member of the Jewish community. Jews also had their phones tapped and their mail read by the secret police.[11][12] AfterIsrael's victory in the 1967Six-Day War, restrictions were further tightened, and 57 Jews inQamishli may have been killed in a pogrom. The communities of Damascus, Aleppo, and Qamishli were under house arrest for eight months following the war. Many Jewish workers were laid off following the Six-Day War.
After purging rival Baathist factions through acoup in 1970, GeneralHafez al-Assad established total dominance over the Ba'ath party and established adictatorship centred around hispersonality cult. The structure of Assad'spolice state revolved around the Ba'ath party organization,Syrian military establishment packed with Ba'athist elites andAssad family'sAlawite loyalists. Hafez ruled Syria for three decades, deploying repressive measures ranging from censorship to violent methods ofstate terror such asmass murders,deportations and practices such astorture, which were unleashed collectively upon the civilian population.[13]SS-HaupsturmfuhrerAlois Brunner, who played a significant role in the implementation ofthe Holocaust as the right-hand man ofAdolf Eichmann, assisted al-Assad in organizing theBa'athist secret police and trained them onNazi Germany's torture practices.[14][15] Such practices remained in use by 2021.[14]
In 1982,Hafez al-Assad responded to an insurrection led by theMuslim Brotherhood in the city of Hama by sending a paramilitary force that indiscriminately killed between 10,000 and 55,000 civilians including children, women, and the elderly during theHama massacre.[16][17] State-violence perpetrated by Assad's reign have targeted women extensively, subjecting them to discrimination and gender-based violence.[18] Between 1980 and 2000, more than 17,000 Syrian civilians were subjected toforced disappearance from the Syrian regime. DuringBaathist occupation of Lebanon, numerous Lebanese, Palestinian and other Arab civilians went missing. More than 35 torture techniques were reported to be employed in Syrian prisons and military detention centres during this time.[19] A 1983 report published byAmnesty International revealed that Assad regime routinely committed mass-executions of alleged dissidents and engaged in the extensivetorture ofprisoners of conscience. Various torture methods in Syrian prisons includeelectrocutions, setting on fire,sexual violence, castration, etc.[20]
In 2000, Bashar al-Assad inherited thetotalitarian system ofBa'athist Syria following the death of his father. His regime was characterized by even more systemic violence and repression than that of Hafez al-Assad. This has been widely attributed to Bashar's inexperience in security and political affairs, in addition to personal insecurities regarding the survival of his family regime.[21] 2006 Freedom House report listed Syria amongst the worst countries to restrict civil liberties andpolitical freedoms; giving it the lowest possible scores in both measures.[22] In 2023,Freedom House rated people's access topolitical rights in Syria as the lowest on itsFreedom in the World annual report on 210 countries. Syria ranked "-3" in political rights – lower than its scale of 1 to 7, alongsideSouth Sudan andWestern Sahara – and Syria was given a rating of "Not Free."[23][24] Since 2022, Syria has the lowest ranked country in report.[25]
According to the 2008 report onhuman rights by theU.S. State Department, the Syrian government's "respect for human rights worsened". Members of the security forces arrested and detained individuals without providing just cause, often held prisoners in "lengthy pretrial and incommunicado detention", and "tortured and physically abused prisoners and detainees". The government imposed significant restrictions onfreedom of speech,press,assembly, andassociation, amid an atmosphere of government corruption.[26] According to Arab Press Network, "despite a generally repressive political climate", there were "signs of positive change," during the 2007 elections.[27] According to a 2008 report byReporters without Borders, "Journalists have to tightly censor themselves for fear of being thrown intoAdra Prison."[28]
In 2009 Syria was included in Freedom House's "Worst of the Worst" section and given a rating of 7 for Political Rights: and 6 for Civil Liberties.[29] According to Human Rights Watch, as of 2009 Syria's poor human rights situation had "deteriorated further". Authorities arrested political and human rights activists, censored websites, detained bloggers, and imposed travel bans. Syria's multiple security agencies continue to detain people without arrest warrants. No political parties were licensed and emergency rule, imposed in 1963, remained in effect.[30] Various torture techniques deployed in Syrian detention centres and prisons include routine beatings, rapes, sexual violence, "Bisat al-rih" (flying carpet), etc.[31]
The scale of the brutal violence andstate terrorism unleashed by theAssad regime and his foreign backers across the country after the eruption of the2011 Syrian revolution was unprecedented, far outstripping the actions of other Arab autocrats who repressed theArab Spring. It even exceeded the brutal violence unleashed byHafez al-Assad during theHama Massacre. By pursuingscorched-earth policies to crush thearmed resistance, Bashar had destroyed the majority of Syria's civilian, cultural and economic infrastructure. Unlike his father, Bashar killed far more Syrian civilians and has also lost significant amount of his political independence to foreign actors likeRussia andIran.[32]
In April 2017, the U.S. Navy carried out amissile attack against a Syrian air base[33] which had been used to conduct achemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians.[34] This attack is also known as the2017 Shayrat missile strike. In 2018, coalition forces including United States, France, and the United Kingdom also carried outa series of military strikes in Syria.
In March 2025, following thefall of the Assad regime, jihadis aligned with the provisional governmentmassacred thousands of Alawites and Christians insectarian violence that has been described asethnic cleansing. According to theSyrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 2,000 Alawites, including women, children, and the elderly, were summarily executed in March, and many thousands more were forced to flee their homes. While the majority of these executions have taken place along the Mediterranean coast, there are reports of Alawite civilians being murdered in Damascus, just a few kilometers from the Presidential Palace.[35] Despite Syrian presidentAhmed al-Sharaa's denial of complicity and repeated promises to investigate and punish those responsible, regional experts and some Western governments have argued that the new Sunni Islamist government is responsible for the jihadist groups and voiced increasing concerns that Assad's autocracy is being replaced by a Sunni theocracy intolerant of minorities.[36][37]
Reports say that about 3,700 children are still missing in Syria after 14 years of Assad’s rule, according to verified records from the Syrian Network for Human Rights.[38] Rights groups believe the real number may be much higher, possibly over 10,000. Many of these children were taken during raids, mass arrests, or separated from their detained parents.[39][38] Some reports claim that western charity organizations actually worked with the old regime, helping them kidnap children.[40]
In November 2025, theOffice of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said "nearly 100 people in Syria have been abducted or forcibly disappeared since January".[41][42]
Human rights violations against Kurds included deprivingethnic Kurdish citizens of their citizenship; suppressingKurdish language andculture; discrimination against citizens based onKurdish ethnicity; confiscation of Kurdish land and settlement byArabs.[43][44][45] In the course of theSyrian Civil War, parts of North and East Syria gained de facto autonomy within the Kurdish-ledDemocratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.
In a 2015 report "'We Had Nowhere Else to Go': Forced Displacement and Demolition in Northern Syria",Amnesty International documented allegations of forced evictions of Arabs,Turkmens and Kurds and the destruction of their homes. According to Amnesty International,People's Defense Units (YPG) accused them of having links withISIL and otherIslamist groups. The report said that "in some cases, entire villages have been demolished", and that villagers were "ordered to leave at gunpoint, their livestock shot at". Some persons claimed to Amnesty that "they told us we had to leave or they would tell theUnited States coalition that we were terrorists and their planes would hit us and our families. Threats by the YPG of calling in US airstrikes against villagers were reported. Amnesty International claimed that "these instances of forced displacement constitute war crimes".[46][47][48][49] Some Arab and Turkmen claimed that YPG militias have stolen their homes and livestock, burned their personal documents and claimed the land as theirs, and that Turkmen "are losing lands where they have been living for centuries".[50] During the Syrian civil war, several attacks by Arab orKurdish Muslims have targeted Syrian Christians, including the2015 Qamishli bombings. In January 2016, YPG militias conducted a surprise attack on Assyrian checkpoints in Qamishli, in a predominantly Assyrian area, killing one Assyrian and wounding three others.[51][52][53]
In October 2015, Amnesty International reported that the YPG had driven civilians from northern Syria and destroyed their homes in retaliation for perceived links to ISIL. The majority of the destroyed homes belonged to Arabs, but some belonged to Turkmens and Kurds.[54] Turkish "Daily Sabah" claimed that Amnesty International has said that Kurdish PYD conducted ethnic cleansing against Turkmens and Arabs after seizing Tal Abyad.[55] However, Amnesty International has published only one report about the Syrian Kurdish forces and it is related to destroying villages and homes, not ethnic cleansing at all.[56] The Amnesty International report concluded that there are documented cases of forced displacement that constitute war crimes.[57] In 2015, Assyrian and Armenian organizations protested the enforcement of Kurdish self-administration in the Hasaka province, including expropriation of private property by the PYD and interference in church school curricula and also criticized illegal seizure of property, and targeted killings[58][59][60] Assyrians have also criticized the enforcement of revisionist curricula in private and public schools with a Kurdish-nationalist bias. They have claimed that in textbooks the Kurds "alter historical and geographical facts", including Assyrian place names which are changed to Kurdish names, and students are taught that King Nebuchadnezzar from the Old Testament married a Kurdish woman.[61][62] Of particular concern are the "harassment and arbitrary arrests of the PYD's Kurdish political rivals" and of civil society leaders noted by human rights organizations.[63] The Y.P.G. is accused of having arrested hundreds of political prisoners. It is claimed that about 150 people were abducted by the YPG in 2013 alone. Human Rights Watch reported in 2014 that "there have been numerous cases of maltreatment in prisons in Rojava". Some dissidents were tortured and killed[64] Amnesty International reported in 2015 that the PYD "is using a crackdown against terrorism...as a pretext to unlawfully detain and unfairly try peaceful critics and civilians."[65][66][67] The PYD has also shot demonstrators, arrested political opponents, and shut down media outlets.[68][69][70] Ethnic tensions between Kurds and Arabs have been at the forefront of the conflicts in Syria and Iraq. In Syria, there are widespread reports of Kurdish abuses against Arab civilians,[68] including arbitrary arrests, forced displacement,[71] and reports of YPG forces razing villages.[72] Similar reports of Kurdish forces destroying Arab homes have emerged inthe fight for Mosul.[73][70]
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