Bashar al-Assad Issues "General Amnesty" Decree with Exceptions and Conditions
September 22, 2024, 2:31 pm

بشار الأسد

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad issued a decree today, Sunday, granting a "general amnesty" for all crimes committed prior to this date, with specific exceptions and conditions.

According to the state news agency "SANA," the decree stipulates that there will be a "general amnesty for the full sentence of those who committed internal and external desertion crimes as stipulated in the Military Penal Code." However, it does not include "those who are hiding from justice and fleeing unless they surrender themselves within three months for internal desertion and four months for external desertion."

The decree also includes "a general amnesty for the full penalty in misdemeanors and violations, except for certain offenses that constitute serious attacks on society and the state, such as bribery, some forms of forgery, and violations against public morals, as well as certain types of theft."

Furthermore, the "amnesty" excludes offenses outlined in building regulations, economic crimes, electricity theft, using fraudulent means to obtain communication services, consumer protection law violations, offenses related to organizing public examinations, forest violations, and dealing in currencies other than the Syrian pound.

The decree requires that in offenses involving attacks on personal property, the offender must compensate the victim and that the "amnesty" does not affect the personal rights lawsuit, which remains under the jurisdiction of the court handling the public rights case. The affected party has the right to file a lawsuit before the criminal court within one year from the date of the decree's issuance.

With this decree, the total number of "amnesty" decrees issued by Bashar al-Assad since the beginning of the revolution in March 2011 rises to 24.

Despite the high volume of amnesty decrees issued, none have succeeded in releasing detainees or those missing involuntarily. The Syrian Network for Human Rights affirms that the regime has released a total of 7,351 arbitrary detainees under these decrees, while approximately 135,253 detainees remain imprisoned.

In its report following the last amnesty decree in November 2023, the network noted that the percentage of those released does not exceed 5% of the total number of detainees and forcibly disappeared individuals held by the regime over the past 13 years, while the regime continues to carry out arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances without pause.

The network emphasized that all "amnesty" decrees exclude crimes directed against detainees and forcibly disappeared individuals, whether on a large or specific scale, aligning clearly with the objectives of the decree aimed at perpetrators of various misdemeanors and felonies of a criminal nature, rather than political ones.

Furthermore, the network stated, "The amnesty decrees issued by the regime do not carry provisions that enhance the hopes of detainees and their families; instead, they are filled with loopholes, exceptions, and conditions that void their content, posing a significant risk to those considering surrendering themselves during the legal timeframe provided by the decree in order to benefit from the amnesty, and contributing to the recruitment of more young people for military service, thus entangling them in the conflict."

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