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Justice in Syria

What is it all about?

Clear and analytic news

Since the fall of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the issue of justice in Syria has been in the world news headlines. The International Criminal Court (ICC) does not have jurisdiction to deal with mass crimes perpetrated by the ousted regime, while since 2019, European courts have taken the lead under the principle of “universal jurisdiction”. The first historic trial, that of Anwar Raslan in Germany, was followed by others, notably in the Netherlands, and by lawsuits launched against around sixty alleged perpetrators in Sweden, Belgium, Austria or France. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has issued “provisional measures” against the practice of torture in Syria. A UN mechanism has been tasked with documenting these crimes. Today, European prosecutors who are working on these cases, Syrian lawyers and all the organisations that have been mobilised for years are at the forefront of this fight for justice , followed very closely by Justice Info.

Syria / France - When French justice rethinks the impunity of heads of state. Photo: On the steps of the Elysée Palace in Paris, Nicolas Sarkozy and Bashar al-Assad smile as they shake hands.
Heads of state immunity under debate
7 July 2025 by Chloé Dubois
On Friday, the highest court of France met to examine the arrest warrant issued in 2023 against former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad – challenged by the public prosecutor on the grounds of immunity protecting heads of state in office.
Truth tents in Syria - Photo: in Eastern Ghouta (south-east of Damascus), a tent houses portraits of the disappeared while Syrians (often mothers accompanied by their children) speak out and seek the truth about the enforced disappearance and torture suffered by their loved ones. Truth tents: “Talking about what Syrians need right now” 
27 June 2025 by Hannah El-Hitami
In post-Assad Syria, the “truth tents” offer a space for victims’ families to discuss truth and justice. Jad al-Hamada, one of the truth tents’ initiators, speaks to Justice Info about the demand for transitional justice in Syria.
Enforced disappearances in Syria: a commission is set up - Photo: a man and a child in front of a billboard displaying portraits of missing persons. Syria’s Missing Persons Commission and the Risk of Marginalization (Part 2)
24 June 2025 by Mustafa Haid
The new Syrian authorities have established two commissions tasked with addressing past violence. What are the challenges faced by the Missing Persons Commission?
Transitional justice in Syria - Photo: Abdul Basit Abdul Latif, Head of the Syrian National Commission for Transitional Justice Syria's Transitional Justice Commission and the Peril of Partiality (Part 1)
23 June 2025 by Mustafa Haid
The new Syrian authorities have established two commissions tasked with addressing past violence. What are the challenges facing the transitional justice commission?
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A doctor walks through the dark corridor of a hospital
16 June 2025 by AFP
Life sentence for a Syrian doctor Alaa Moussa was on trial for multiple crimes against detainees in military hospitals in Damascus and Homs during the Syrian civil war. On 16 June, a German court sentenced him to life imprisonment.
At his trial in Paris (France), Majdi Nema (alias ‘Islam Alloush’) was found guilty of complicity in war crimes committed in Syria. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
2 June 2025 by Chloé Dubois
Nema, guilty of his organization’s crimes Majdi Nema, former spokesperson for the Jaysh al-Islam group, has been found guilty by a Paris court. The former Syrian rebel was sentenced to ten years in prison for complicity in war crimes.
Photo: A lawyer walks through the
23 May 2025 by Chloé Dubois
Majdi Nema: a trial with witnesses in absentia The Paris trial of Syrian Majdi Nema for complicity in war crimes enters its final phase this Friday: the closing arguments. But the absence of many witnesses has weighed heavily on the proceedings.
Syrian Majdi Nema is on trial in France for complicity in war crimes committed in Syria. Photo: Nema in 2019, freshly graduated in Istanbul.
15 May 2025 by Chloé Dubois
Nema, portrait of an ex-rebel “certain of his innocence” Syrian Majdi Nema has been on trial in France since April 29 for complicity in war crimes. This former spokesman for the rebel group Jaysh al-Islam is pleading not-guilty before the Paris Assize Court.
A Syrian ex-rebel on trial in France: Majdi Nema.
29 April 2025 by Chloé Dubois
A Syrian rebel on trial in France The war crimes trial of Syrian Majdi Nema, former spokesman and an alleged top leader of the armed rebel group Jaysh al-Islam, opens this Tuesday, April 29, before the Paris Assize Court.
Searching for the missing in Syria. Photo: portrait of Karla Quintana wearing the official IIMP waistcoat in the field.
24 April 2025 by Julia Crawford
Looking for the missing in Syria: “It’s titanic, but we are moving” Mexican human rights lawyer Karla Quintana was appointed in December to head the UN’s Institution on Missing Persons in Syria. In an exclusive interview, she talked with Justice about how this body had to reshape its priorities after the fall of Bashar al-Assad.
Representatives and dignitaries of Syrian communities attend a two-day national dialogue conference in Damascus (Syria)
27 March 2025 by Asymmetrical Haircuts
Seeking justice in Syria: the advantages of the Assad regime Trying to figure out the landscape of mass crimes justice initiatives on Syria, after the fall of former president Bashar el-Assad, can only be an uncertain prediction game. In this podcast, Uğur Üngör talks about what we know.
The invaders return - Poster for the redesigned ‘’The Invaders‘’ series. A map of the world is inlaid in the starry sky.
7 March 2025 by Thierry Cruvellier
The invaders return More and more countries – Russia, Israel, the United States, China, Azerbaijan, Venezuela – are publicly declaring their intent to conquer territories by force, or like Rwanda are doing it without admitting. The world order establ [...]
Justice in Syria. Portrait (drawing) of Nadim Houry, international lawyer.
25 February 2025 by Franck Petit
Justice in Syria should be “a new social contract” Two months after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster, director of the Arab Reform Initiative Nadim Houry explores the possibilities for transitional justice. In his view, “civil peace without justice is inconceivable today” [...]
In Syria, after the fall of Assad, the search for the disappeared often begins in mass graves. Photo: People digging at the bottom of a deep mass grave while children watch from above.
7 January 2025 by Luis Fondebrider
Syria: getting it right in the search for the disappeared Since the fall of the Assad regime a month ago, many reports told the stories of Syrians trying to find out about their relatives who had disappeared. Infamous detention centers have revealed their murderous secrets. Mass graves w [...]
International justice for Bashar al-Assad's crimes in Syria. Photo: Broken portrait of Bashar al-Assad next to documents.
13 December 2024 by Franck Petit
“We will follow them wherever they will go” Renowned Syrian lawyer Anwar al-Bunni and his colleagues at the Syrian Center for Legal Studies and Research have been leading figures in Syrian efforts for justice. In Europe, they have initiated, with other organizations, univer [...]
ICC & Syria - An aerial photo shows people gathering around Saydnaya prison in Syria.
10 December 2024 by Asymmetrical Haircuts
Syria opens its prisons, ICC’s ASP closes its doors Without warning, Bashar el-Assad relinquished power and fled to Russia. This new Asymmetrical Haircuts podcast opens the discussion on Syria, following the opening of prisons and calls for accountability after decades with very li [...]
Genocide of the Yazidis - Photo: in Iraq, Yazidi women hold up placards commemorating the invasion of their region by the Islamic State (EI) group in 2014.
26 November 2024 by Chloé Dubois
Yazidi genocide trial to take place in France Two men and a woman, all French nationals and members of the Islamic State group, are for the first time being brought before a French court for genocide. The three are accused of taking part in the extermination of Yazidis and en [...]
Trial in the Netherlands for the slavery of Yezidi women in Syria - Photo: a Yezidi woman victim of slavery poses in profile in Syria.
22 October 2024 by Margherita Capacci
“IS saw the Yazidis as objects, not people” From October 14 to 17, victims’ testimonies were shared in the trial of a Dutch national accused of holding two Yazidi women as house slaves in Syria. The accused had travelled in 2015 with her four-year-old son and married an Isl [...]
Tadamon massacre in Syria: a trial in Germany - Photo: a street destroyed in the Tadamon neighbourhood, south of Damascus (Syria).
25 July 2024 by Hannah El-Hitami
The 2013 Tadamon massacre looms over Germany’s latest Syria trial Videos of the Tadamon massacre of 2013, after being widely circulated on social networks, are being used as evidence in Germany’s latest universal jurisdiction trial. While defendant Ahmed H., a Syrian driver and alleged militiama [...]
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