Syria Watch

Syria Justice and Accountability Centre: Position Paper on the Upcoming Transitional Constitution

April 22, 2016

To: The Syrian Negotiating Parties

The International Syria Support Group

The United Nations Special Envoy Stefan de Mistura and his Team

We, the Syrian organizations working in the fields of documenting violations, accountability, transitional justice, and supporting a democratic transition in Syria, who have signed this memorandum, following the media reports on the drafting of a new constitution before August, submit this memorandum to the Syrian negotiating parties, to the United Nations Special Envoy and his team, and to the states supporting the negotiations as a procedural memorandum specifying our organizations’ position on matters pertaining to the next Syrian constitution.

The signatories agree that the writing of a permanent Syrian constitution should come at a later time subsequent to the transitional stage. The drafting of a permanent Syrian constitution should take place through a constitutional committee, which would be established through a process that is agreed upon through elections, and would have a membership that is also agreed upon through elections and on the basis of legal and constitutional experience, and upon the review of members’ résumés and characters.

The text of UN Resolution 2254 expressed support for a political process under Syrian leadership, facilitated by the United Nations, to “define a timeframe and a mechanism to draft a new constitution.” However, the resolution did not in any way stipulate that a new Syrian constitution should be completed by non-Syrian parties before August.

The undersigned organizations believe that the timeframe that the American and Russian parties have announced is not at all realistic. This timeframe deprives the Syrians from thoroughly planning the process for drafting a new constitution. It also opens the door to pre-prepared constitutional drafts that could be readily imposed on the Syrian people. Moreover, the process of drafting the new constitution is exactly as important as the new constitution itself. If a guarantee is given that a wide segment of the Syrian people can participate by putting forth their demands for the new constitution, the drafting process itself can be part of the peace-building process.

The signatories affirm that Syria needs, in the transitional period, a constitutional declaration or a temporary draft constitution that focuses on the following constitutional principles in advance of the drafting of a new constitution once the security situation has stabilized and refugees have returned to Syria:

1) The people are the source of authority and legislation.

2) The division of powers, and the affirmation of the principle of checks and balances in the constitution.

3) Making the army and security forces subject to the authority of elected civilian officials, and banning military and security figures from politics.

4) Banning torture as well as harsh, degrading, and inhumane treatment.

5) Independence of the judiciary.

6) The constitution guarantees individual rights, including freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, access to information, privacy, and the guarantee of religious freedoms.

7) The constitution guarantees the freedom to assemble and protest, including the freedom to form parties and civil society organizations.

8) Forbidding discrimination among Syrians on the basis of gender, origin, language, religion, creed, wealth, social position, political beliefs, disability, or for any other reason.

9) Giving damaged areas priority in development and reconstruction efforts.

10) Ratifying international agreements on human rights, and committing to implementing them.

11) Equality before and in the law, specifying clear bases for respecting the principles in force, and the rule of law.

12) Total equality between all citizens, male and female, in civil, political, economic, and social rights, and in all fields of public and family life; and the implementation of policies and mechanisms to achieve the principle of proportionate representation between women and men in legislative and executive bodies, and in all representative institutions, including parties and civil organizations.

The organizations that have signed this memorandum affirm that the United Nations and the International Syria Support Group must abide by the decisions of the Security Council and allow the Syrian people to participate in the drafting of their country’s next constitution.

We are ready to meet with you through our representatives at any time, and we invite you to discuss these points with us in more detail.

Signatories alphabetically,

  1. Assyrian Network for Human Rights
  2. Badael
  3. Baytna Syria
  4. Dawlaty
  5. Daraa Free Lawyer Bar
  6. Free Syrian Lawyers Aggregation
  7. Free Syrian Lawyers Association (FSLA)
  8. Human Rights Organization in Syria (MAF)
  9. Local Development and Small-Projects Support (LDSPS)
  10. Kawakibi Center for Human Rights
  11. Kawakibi Organization for Human Rights
  12. Syria Justice and Accountability Center (SJAC)
  13. Syrian Network For Human Rights
  14. The Day After (TDA)
  15. Syrian League for Citizenship
  16. Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (CME)
  17. Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies
  18. Syrian Center for Human Rights Studies
  19. Syrian Institute for Justice
  20. Syrian Free Independent Judicial Council
  21. Violation Documentation Center (VDC)
  22. Women Now

Syria Watch: ISIL’s Torture and Detention Centers “The Black Bottom”

ISIL’s Torture

SNHR issued ”The Black Bottom” report regarding ISIL’s torture and detention centers in Syria.
The report stated that ISIL had established secret or public detention centers in regions that are under its control to detain thousands of residents. Prisoners were incarcerated due to different accusations. Most of the times, criticizing ISIL’s oppressive policies was considered the main reason for arrests or abductions. Hence, the civil society and all popular movements were oppressed. To ISIL members or cadres, as long as people are abiding to their religious terms and not criticizing their ruling, then they can live peacefully under ISIL’s terms of living.
The report assured that ISIL has emerged due to decades of political conflicts and not just Islamic extremism. ISIL’s phenomena remain a complex one that cannot be limited to Jihadists or Salafists.
The report depended on SNHR daily documentation since 2011. They communicated with survivors from ISIL’s detention centers and with local residents and activists who live nearby those prisons. SNHR either met the eyewitnesses or residents or interviewed them via Skype or the phone.

SNHR team were not able to record all of ISIL’s detention centers or prisons, especially their secret ones. ISIL had resorted to secret jails after the international coalition commenced its airstrikes on Syria on 23 September 2014. They recorded the arrest of not less than 6318 individuals including 713 children and 647 women since ISIL was established on 9 April 2013 and up till 31 January 2016. They also estimated the enforced disappearance of more than 1188 individuals including 411 children and 87 women since 9 April 2014 and up till March 2016.The report was able to monitor 19 detention centers including some prisons, detailed as follows: Al Raqqa Governorate: 8 detention centers, Deir Al Zour Governorate: 6 detention centers, and Aleppo Governorate with 5 detention centers. While it estimated that ISIL has not less than 54 detention centers.

SNHR affirmed that ISIL had committed, beyond reasonable doubt, widespread violations against the international human rights law and the right of the people in the areas under its control, through arbitrary arrests, torture, and the application of the unjust provisions. Also, similar acts were made against the armed opposition groups, prisoners from the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, and governmental forces. All those acts constitute war crimes under the International Humanitarian Law.
The report stated that ISIL exercised, within the detention centers of systematic torture, in the context of the large-scale in various areas controlled by them. The amount of crimes against humanity, and that some of the torture operations have ethnic and sectarian dimensions. Sometimes ISIL resorted to deforming the detainees’ bodies after execution orders.
The report recommended the international coalition forces that is led by the United State and the Russian forces to pay special attention to the detainees in ISIL prisons and all other different prisons and avoid committing the same mistakes that were made before, and to acquire information from SNHR’s report to protect the civilians who live under ISIL’s control

It also demanded the international community to provide all methods of support to Human Rights group in documenting the violations that are being committed by the extremist organization, and reveal their false allegations before the public opinion in Syria, and to build their capacity through substantial training and developing.
Finally, it indicated that the organization of ISIL was founded on 9 April 2013, two years and one month after the eruption of the popular protests that demanded political and economic reform. If the international community had supported popular protests, there would have been no existence to ISIL or Al Nussra Front, and that they cannot eliminate extremism and terrorism as long as political tyranny of the Assad regime exists.

Syria Deeply Weekly Update: Women of Daraya: Help Us ‘Avoid Another Madaya’

WEEKLY UPDATE
April 23, 2016

Dear Readers,Welcome to the weekly Syria Deeply newsletter. We’ve rounded up the most important stories and developments about Syria and the Syrians in order to bring you valuable news and analysis.

Women of Daraya: Help Us ‘Avoid Another Madaya’

With their launch of an awareness campaign highlighting deteriorating health conditions in Daraya, a Damascus suburb under government siege for more than three years, a group of women hope to prevent yet another humanitarian disaster.

Syrian women carry a banner in Arabic that reads:” The women of Daraya want an end to the siege,” as they protest in Daraya on Monday, April 25, 2011. (AP Photo)

Women’s Advisory Board in Geneva Sparks Controversy

After being repeatedly accused of sidelining the role and demands of Syrian women at the negotiation table in Geneva, the U.N. established the Syrian Women’s Advisory Board to consult with special envoy Staffan de Mistura. But the board’s makeup has caused outrage in some sections of Syrian society.

Syrian women wait outside a bakery shop to buy bread in Maaret Misreen, near Idlib, on Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

36 Mass Graves Uncovered in Deir Ezzor: Activists

Members of an underground activist network named “Deir Ezzor is Being Slaughtered Silently” have scoured government and ISIS-controlled territories across the oil-rich province and discovered 36 mass graves – allegedly the grisly work of extremist militants and government forces.

ISIS militants parade in a commandeered Iraqi security forces armored vehicle down a main road at the northern city of Mosul, Iraq, in June 2014. (AP Photo/File)

More Recent Stories to Look Out for at Syria Deeply:

Find our new reporting and analysis every weekday at www.syriadeeply.org.
You can reach our team with any comments or suggestions at info@newsdeeply.org.

Top image: A refugee from Syria, takes a picture of his family by the border fence near a makeshift migrant and refugee camp at the northern Greek border point of Idomeni, Greece, Tuesday, April 19, 2016. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

ICTJ: Justice in Syria Depends on the Return of the Displaced

Even as more evidence emerges about his crimes, Bashar al-Assad was returned with a predictably implausible majority in the presidential elections in Syria last week. At the same time, negotiations to resolve the conflict began in Geneva with a sense of futility hanging thick in the air and expectedly ran into a dead end very quickly with the opposition representatives suspending their participation. Assad says he might consider cherry-picking some opponents for government positions but a government of national unity is out of the question. Having radically improved Assad’s position Russia has, for the moment, one leg in and one leg out of the conflict, while the US continues to gamble that its insubstantial engagement does not entirely negate its leverage.

All the while the refugee crisis fueled by the Syrian conflict continues in all its harrowing inhumanity, with scores of people drowning in the Mediterranean this week and theconditions in refugee camps in Greece deteriorating. The exodus has seriously damaged Europe’s vision of itself and continues to present the biggest political crisis it has faced in decades.

More than half of Syria’s population of 24 million has been uprooted, with four million no longer even in the country. Any lasting peace will need to address the plight of the displaced, both those who fled across international borders and those fleeing inside Syria.

It is in the immediate interest of Europe not only to stop the exodus at its source but also to begin to create the circumstances for the displaced’s eventual return. Beginning now to think about displacement and its resolution is precisely in the interests of those who seek to remove Assad from power and to see him face justice.

A few weeks ago saw the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the conflict. We heard many calls for justice. The US and the UK have chopped and changed their public views on whether Assad should stay and if so for how long. The US Congress passed a resolutioncalling for the creation of a Tribunal to try those accused of serious crimes. Other governments and human rights organizations are looking into similar options. They are looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

Only the most deluded propagandist would doubt that Assad has committed large-scale war crimes and crimes against humanity. That he and his colleagues in the Syrian High Command, among others, should face justice ought to be unquestionable. But instead of considering practical steps that make peace and justice likely, there is a tendency to descend into disingenuous posturing that fills the void of inaction.

When we talk of justice we need to remember that it consists of more than making sure Assad is held to account. It also means making Syria a place safe to live and where all its citizens enjoy the respect and protection of the state. That is – it requires root and branch reform.

Other than death, there are only two ways for Assad to go: he can decide to step down or he can be forced by negotiation or democratic process to go. The latter route requires massive numbers of opposition elements to return to Syria with a vision of a democratic future and the chance to exercise their civic voice meaningfully. That is why beginning to deal with displacement now is not only an urgent humanitarian necessity but also a strategic imperative.

The current prospects of holding Assad to account for his crimes are limited. In theory, a resolution from the UN Security Council (even today) could refer Assad to theInternational Criminal Court, a course that most assuredly would be vetoed by Russia (and perhaps by China). Similarly, an international ad hoc tribunal, as set up by the UN Security Council for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, would also be vetoed by Russia.

The remaining options would be for a new Syrian regime to either prosecute Assad or make a retroactive declaration (if he were to leave Syria) recognizing the jurisdiction of the ICC. The most plausible route to holding Assad accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity will require playing the longer game of pursuing a negotiated regime change between Syrians rather than a regime change (under whatever guise) from outside.

As far as the prospects of fundamental reform and demands for justice are concerned, the focus should be on taking steps to facilitate return now, rather than on implausible calls for prosecutions that in fact may hinder the prospects of peace and return in the shorter term.

There are three important steps that should be taken now to ensure that a post-conflict Syria has a chance of a better future than many other post-conflict zones. The first is to exercise meaningful consultation with exiled and displaced populations. Efforts can begin now to discuss and document the plight of people considering return. Where did they come from? Who controls the territory now? What options do they have and which of the viable options do they prefer? Of course this will be a painful and fraught process, but if this process begins now the displaced will be able to begin to rebuild their lives sooner rather than later. That process of registration of information about land and property should also facilitate the prospects of people being able to organize and to vote sooner rather than later after their return.

An even more difficult task will to be to help those displaced to try to locate their family members, many of whom will have been disappeared or killed. No one should underestimate how unbearably painful the process of locating lost loved ones can be. An important step will be to assist these efforts by establishing a DNA databank to help facilitate identifications in due course, as human remains are discovered and family members are able to lay to rest their loved ones with some dignity and closure.

Third, more can be made of the massive amounts of documentation that has been gathered in recent years from Syrian conflict zones rather than simply waiting for a tribunal or other mechanism to be established. That documentation should be synthesized and analyzed. It may even be possible to hold public hearings (in safe locations obviously) where victims are able to tell their stories directly, unmediated by journalists or other forms of reporting. This is not justice, but it has some real benefits. It would allow victims to have a sense of agency in influencing the broader context in which negotiations take place, trying to ensure that compromises for peace are informed by an element of principle.

Assad depends on a number of things for his continued survival: some form of Russian support, a continued conflict with Daesh and a lack of massive well-organized opposition focused on democracy. Facilitating the return of half the population to their homes is the shortest route to undermining his stability and of ultimately provoking a shift in Russian support.

As unpalatable as it may sound, political posturing which reduces the discussion of justice to Assad being removed or tried today is not helpful. A stable ceasefire is the only possible means of helping displaced Syrians return home. That process will be an enormous undertaking. Yet it is much more likely to determine the fate of Syria (and perhaps Europe) in the next five to twenty years than any other.