Syrian human rights activist Ribal al-Assad tore into Europe for lifting sanctions against the nation’s new “terrorist” regime, which he warned is no better than his first cousin, ousted leader Bashar al-Assad.
After days of bloodshed, Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, leader of the forces that overthrew Assad, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), on Thursday signed a temporary constitution putting the country under Islamist rule for at least five years.
But al-Sharaa’s government has gone on a “revenge killing spree,” going after low-level officers who had been conscripted into Assad’s armed forces, along with Alawite and Christian minorities, among others, according to al-Assad.
“They couldn’t have refused [military service]. Those who refused were put in jails,” he said, adding that any high-level officers in Assad’s forces had fled the country.
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While much of Syria was happy to see the ouster of Bashar al-Assad, religious and ethnic minorities have remained skeptical of the new leadership once tied to al Qaeda.
Ribal al-Assad insisted the new regime is “an Islamic caliphate. They want a theocracy. They want to replace a dictatorship with cult, as it happened in Iran 45 years ago.”
He said Christians were caught up alongside Alawites in the revenge spree because “Christians and Alawites live together. In my town, we have Christians who live there. We’ve always, lived … side by side, and they celebrate holidays together.”
In December, the Biden administration removed the longtime bounty on the head of HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Europe suspended a range of sanctions on the new Syrian government late last month, though the U.S. still has many other punitive financial measures in place.
“After 14 years of devastation of destruction of so much mass killing, you know, it’s really not normal for the international community to come, you know, and to have, for example, the Europeans lift sanctions … on this terrorist regime and say, ‘Oh, there are snapback sanctions in case this regime does something that with the sanctions will be reinstated,” said al-Assad.
“What worse could [HTS] do for you to reinstate them?”
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Al-Assad tore into the European Commission for inviting al-Sharaa to a donor conference to raise money for his government.
“European countries [are going] to give him money, to give him more funds so he could encourage and reward him for the killing that he’s done, instead of saying, ‘We will not lift sanctions until we see a new program, a modern constitution, secular constitution that guarantees equality of all citizens and the rule of law.”
Government forces have crushed an insurgency that began last week by armed militia loyal to Assad.
And rights groups say hundreds of civilians, largely belonging to the Alawite minority sect of Islam, which counts Assad as a member, died in the violence that erupted along Syria’s coast.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) alleges close to 1,000 civilians were killed in the past week’s violence.
Thousands of civilians who fled the sectarian violence are still sheltering at a Russian airbase along the Latakia province, according to Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova.
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“Our military sheltered more than 8,000, according to yesterday’s data, probably closer to 9,000 Syrians, mostly women and children,” she said Thursday.
Entire families, women and children included, were slaughtered as part of the past week’s sectarian killings, the United Nations said.
Al-Sharaa claimed the government would investigate “the violations against civilians and identify those responsible for them.”
The U.N. Human Rights Office has counted 111 civilian killings but expects the figure to be much higher.
“In a number of extremely disturbing instances, entire families — including women, children and individuals hors de combat — were killed with predominantly Alawite cities and villages targeted in particular,” U.N. human rights office spokesperson Thameen Al Kheetan said Tuesday.
“Many of the cases documented were of summary executions. They appear to have been carried out on a sectarian basis.”
Abdulhamid Al-Awak, part of a committee tasked by al-Sharaa with drawing up the new constitution that will establish a transitional government for five years, told a news conference Thursday the constitution would require the head of state to be a Muslim and said Islamic law is the main source of jurisprudence.
But Al-Awak said the constitution would include protections for free expression and the media.
“There are many, many, many, many clauses in that constitution that are hilarious,” said al-Assad.
“The transition period is for five years, but it can be extended indefinitely, you know, based on security and political conditions. You know, what does that mean?
“The president, he could appoint one third of Parliament with full legislative powers. You know, this is again, this is crazy. All political parties at the moment are suspended. No opposition, no representation. Nothing.”
The document will “balance between social security and freedom” during the rocky political situation, said Al-Awak.
The constitution also claims the state is “committed to combating all forms of violent extremism while respecting rights and freedoms” and that “citizens are equal before the law in rights and duties, without discrimination based on race, religion, gender or lineage.”
It banned arms outside military control and cracked down on “glorifying the former Assad regime” as a crime.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Council rejected the draft document Friday and called for it to be rewritten, arguing it did not go far enough in protecting Syria’s many ethnic communities. It argued the constitution “reproduced authoritarianism in a new form” and said “any constitutional declaration must be the result of genuine national consensus, not a project imposed by one party,” even after a breakthrough agreement on Monday with the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led authorities calling for a ceasefire and a merging of their armed forces.
Al-Assad called on the U.S. to step in to help Syria establish a “genuine representative democracy.”
“This is definitely not what the Syrian people were looking for, those who rose against the previous regime. This is not the regime that they want,” he said. “And this is why we want the United States to help us move towards a genuine representative democracy.
“How are you going to let an Islamist extremist-run regime on the Mediterranean, which will start recruiting thousands?
“They could be in two hours and a half in Cyprus and then the Greek islands and Europe and from Europe to the U.S.. … You remember what al Qaeda has done when they were in Afghanistan. And Afghanistan is not on the Mediterranean.”
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