Introduction The debate over unilateral sanctions on Syria, imposed in response to the regime’s atrocities, has dominated the discourse in a myriad of international and regional fora. Actors from civil society, the aid community, multilateral institutions and beyond have debated the impact of sanctions on Syria and, concomitantly, their legitimacy. What is conspicuously lacking from these debates is a more realistic discussion of the measures…

Writing in the dark without electricity, Bissan Fakih recounts the blast that devastated Lebanon’s capital one year ago, and charts the country’s dizzying collapse into utter dysfunction and despair ever since.

After Denmark’s recent steps to deport Syrian refugees, calls for similar measures are now on the rise in Germany; Syrians’ largest European haven. Is Europe steadily abandoning its human rights obligations?

We crossed the Galata bridge at a hundred kilometers an hour. Like all his peers, the Turkish taxi driver didn’t know what made him drive at such crazy speed, and harass other vehicles, and insult those cruising slowly as though they were committing a cardinal sin. After the rollercoaster turn following the end of the bridge, we were inevitably held up at the Tarlabaşı intersection;…

[Editor’s note: This interview was translated from Arabic in partnership with The Syria Campaign.] Syrians have been reeling from the so-called “Caesar photos”—images of tens of thousands of detainees tortured to death in Assad regime custody, leaked by a defector codenamed Caesar—since they first began appearing some six years ago. For the families of those forcibly disappeared in the regime’s prisons, the shock was severe; especially…

[Editor’s note: The below is an edited version of a talk given by the author in Paris on 4 September. An extended version of the text is also published by Al-Jumhuriya in Arabic.]                                   The twentieth century was one of colonialism, imperialism, and two wars waged by the European powers on the world stage, christened the World Wars. It was the century that witnessed Nazism,…

A young member of Syria’s Türkmen minority, living as a refugee in Istanbul, writes of the fears sparked by the Turkish government’s new crackdown on Syrians, and his broader disappointment at the breakdown of communal relations between Turks and Syrians, brought on by xenophobes left and right.

A Syrian doctor says the UN’s plan to stop attacks on hospitals in Syria has failed. If it can’t be fixed, it should be abandoned.

[Editor’s note: This investigation has been nominated for the 2020 Samir Kassir Award for Freedom of the Press. It was originally published in Arabic on 16 May, 2019. The reporting was carried out  with the support of the Network of Iraqi Reporters for Investigative Journalism (NIRIJ), under the supervision of Kami al-Melhem.]   13-year-old Hibatullah stood in a long queue with a group of women…

Since the outbreak of the Syrian uprising and the ensuing militarization and bombardment by the Bashar al-Assad regime, large numbers of Syrians have been forced to flee across their country’s borders into neighboring territories. Turkey in particular has been a preferred destination, due to its relative stability and position as a stepping stone to Europe via the Aegean Sea from its western shoreline, especially the…

[Editor’s note: This article was originally published in Arabic on 13 August, 2018] Recent weeks have seen thousands of Syrian families notified of the deaths of missing relatives in Assad regime custody. In one sense, this is nothing new, in terms of the regime’s long-established strategy of arresting and murdering its opponents. The clear spike in cases, however, with horrifying numbers reached in the past…

Animals have not fared well at militants’ hands in Syria over the past seven years, though civilians have been kinder. Dr. Uğur Ümit Üngör traces the shifting role and symbolism of animals in Syria’s recent history.

For years, the Syrian regime’s allies in Lebanon have spread crackpot conspiracy theories about plots to prevent the country’s more than 1 million refugees returning. Now they belatedly realize Assad’s own actions may turn their scarecrow into reality.

With Lebanon’s authorities now obliging Syrian refugees to sign pledges not to have relationships with Lebanese women, the country has further debased its once-proud tradition of human rights, argues Makram Rabah.

[Editor’s note: This article was originally published in Arabic on 1 February 2018] “As a feminist movement, you should go to Sochi,” said a Western feminist activist to us prior to last week’s ‘Syrian National Dialogue Congress’ in Russia. When I asked her why in God’s name we would do such a thing, she replied, “What if there are no women? What if women’s rights…

In her talk for Stanford University’s conference on the subject of ‘Cruelty’, Kelly Grotke examines friendship, universality, and cruelty between the European past and the Syrian present.

An in-depth look into the constitution of distinctive rationale around legal reform revolving around civil marriage in Lebanon.

Maya Schkolne examines how the human rights framework operates as an apparatus for punishment and exclusion of migrants and refugees.