The future of Transitional Justice in Post-Assad Syria

On December 8, 2024 the unthinkable happened: the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.

This new episode of the Justice Visions podcast explores how the mobilization for justice shapes up in the post-Assad era. Brigitte Herremans is joined by our new colleague, Layla Zibar, an urban researcher who focuses on the spatio-temporal dimensions of forced displacements and justice. Together they examine what this historic moment means for the struggle for justice and how it affects victim participation and leadership.

Joining the discussion are Yasmen Almeshan, founding member of the Caesar Families Association, and Lina Ghoutouk, a human rights defender researching the gendered impact of enforced disappearances. Yasmen and Lina share their perspectives on the fate of Syria’s disappeared, the urgent need to safeguard detention centers and mass graves, and the growing demand for victim participation in justice processes. The fall of the Assad regime and the transition have reshaped the struggle for justice, truth, and memorialization. One of the main challenges now is to ensure that justice is not delayed or denied.

Yasmen has just returned from Syria, where she joined over 50 experts in a workshop on transitional justice, underscoring civil society’s role in shaping the transition, if the new caretaker government engages. The road to justice is long, Yasmen highlights, with the immediate priority being safeguarding records and mass graves, crucial to uncovering the fate of the missing, the most painful and urgent issue. “The stark contrast between the number of those documented as missing and the relatively small number of those released was a heartbreaking shock. It meant that the likelihood of our loved ones being dead had increased significantly, and any hope of their return had all but vanished. Conflicting reports about their fate, along with a spread of rumors, often fueled by social media, only added to the confusion.”

Lina emphasizes the urgent need for trust among stakeholders and cooperation from the caretaker government, international institutions such as the Independent Institution for Missing Persons in Syria, civil society, and victims. The Syrian government should, in her view, focus on urgent transitional justice measures, such as securing detention centers and mass graves, preserving evidence, and preventing impunity. The most pressing issue is the call from families of the disappeared for a unified approach to address their plight. “They need one place that they can go to and inquire about the fate of their loved ones. They really need to know where they can go to have verified information, to know about services and to inquire about what is available for them and for the survivors and also for the families.”

Yasmen Almeshan is a co-founder and president of the Caesar Families Association. Before the Syrian revolution, she was active in the  humanitarian field. She worked as a pharmaceutical assistant at the Al Furat Hospital for 12 years and at the beginning of the war in Iraq she was engaged in assistance to Iraqi refugees. She was involved in the protest movement in Syria until she lost five of her brothers, four of whom were killed in by the Syrian regime and one by ISIS in Deir al-Zour. She was forced to leave Syria as her family was persecuted by ISIS. Yasmen recognized her brother Oqba‘s picture among Caesar’s photographs. This prompted her to work with other families who faced such loss and to establish the Caesar Families Association. They invested strongly in advocacy to establish an institution concerned with revealing the fate of missing persons in Syria. Yasmen is member of INOVAS, a network of victims around the world.

Voice-over by Maisaa Tanjour.