Despite Fall of Assad and Recent Elections in Syria, Minorities Still Aren’t Safe

QAMISHLI, Syria — “We Yazidi people are extremely afraid that we will be exterminated,” says Menaf Jaafar, a Yazidi Kurd in Aleppo, northern Syria. As a member of a religious minority, he says his people fear the new Syrian government. “It consists of extremist and terrorist factions whose hands are stained with the blood of Syrians.”

Last December, Syria’s minorities watched with mixed feelings as the rebel forces led by the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) toppled the Bashar Assad government. A Turkey-backed and U.S.-friendly Islamist group, the HTS advocates for a version of political Islam that includes little to no acceptance of other beliefs.

With the HTS in control of the new government, Syria’s minority communities are even more worried about being sidelined, attacked and killed. Since December 2024, there have been numerous incidents where minorities were targeted or massacred. Forces affiliated with the transitional government were involved in killing at least 1,400 Alawites and 1,000 Druze civilians in massacres earlier this year, according to United Nations reports. The Alawites continue to be targeted, and the Druze remain besieged in their region by the government; many have fled their homes and are now sheltering in schools. Christians, too, are on edge. An explosion in a Damascus church in June killed dozens of people and injured 60.

On Oct. 5, Syria held its first elections since the ousting of Assad. The new parliament will govern for 30 months and is responsible for passing new electoral laws and a constitution. Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former HTS leader, appointed one-third of the legislators. The other two-thirds were elected by province-based electoral colleges whose electors were largely handpicked by the transitional administration. Of the 119 legislators chosen indirectly, only 4% are women, two are Christian and eight are from other minorities.

Druze and Alawite leaders, together with the Kurdish Autonomous Administration, rejected the elections and have expressed skepticism that the new parliament will address the violence against minority groups, let alone discrimination or autonomy. The elections “failed to represent all regions and components of the country, instead serving as a political performance,” said the Syrian Democratic Council, the political wing of the Kurdish Autonomous Administration.

Post-Assad, the first major attacks against the Alawites occurred on March 7, when the transitional government mounted a military operation on the Syrian coast that it claimed was aimed at remnants of the former regime. But the operation escalated to massacres against the Alawite population — Assad is an Alawite, but many Alawites opposed him — committed by forces affiliated with the new defense ministry and foreign fighters. Homes were also looted and set on fire, and much of the mountainside was scorched.

In the Alawite village of Rasafa, Rasheed Suleiman Saad described to Truthdig how his son, Suleiman Saad, was killed on the night of March 8.

“They ripped his chest and took his heart out,” he said through tears. “An armed group of 10 people in balaclavas entered our house. They gathered all the villagers and insulted all the men and children physically and verbally. They took my son away in a very humiliating way. Later that day, I received a call from his phone, and they repeated that they were sending him somewhere, to be slaughtered.”

Rasheed Suleiman wouldn’t see his son again, and the consequences of the loss go beyond grief. “We are the poorest family in the village. We have a lot of debt and my youngest son has cancer. Suleiman liked sport and we did the impossible to get him into sports college. He was also working to help pay off the debts that we had to cover basic daily needs,” Rasheed Suleiman said.

A journalist in the area confirmed to Truthdig that 64 people were killed in Rasafa village between March 7 and March 10. They also said violations continue. As recently as Sept. 28, two gunmen riding a motorcycle through Jadrin village killed four Alawite civilians returning from work at a nearby construction site.

Druze people were similarly attacked in July. After clashes and a wave of kidnappings broke out between Druze factions and Bedouin tribal fighters in Suwayda, a Druze-controlled region in southern Syria, the transitional government sent in its forces to “restore order and extend government sovereignty,” and the Druze reportedly responded by killing at least two Bedouins. Israel also got involved, launching airstrikes against Syrian government forces under the pretext of “protecting” the Druze.

The Druze people in Suwayda have been organized and armed in various factions since 2011, in order to protect their people from external attacks and violations committed under Assad and avoid involvement in the Syrian conflict. As a result, they have enjoyed partial independence. During the July clashes, government forces murdered, kidnapped and humiliated Druze people and took control of some towns in Suwayda. Over 190,000 people have been displaced from and within Suwayda since early July, mostly Druze and Bedouins, according to the U.N.

After the massacres against Alawites in coastal Syria and Druze people in Suwayda, the transitional government formed separate committees to investigate the violations in an attempt to demonstrate accountability to the international community. The Syrian Commission of Inquiry released its findings on the Alawite massacres at the end of July, absolving Syrian military leaders of any responsibility. Last month, Syria, Jordan and the U.S. ultimately drew up a road map to “restore calm” in Suwayda which also concluded that the Syrian military was only trying to stop the clashes. The leading Alawite and Druze authorities rejected these outcomes.

“We do not recognize a commission formed to distort and conceal the truth,” Ghazal Ghazal, the head of the Supreme Alawite Islamic Council in Syria and the Diaspora, said in a statement. “We rejected it at its inception and continue to reject it now. It was created by the very perpetrators of the crimes, to serve as a veil hiding their disgrace.” He argued for solutions that meet the demands of all Syrians.

Now, discrimination and attacks against minorities continue on various fronts. There is a near-total shutdown of bakeries in Suwayda due to weeks of flour shortages. Locals accuse the government of an undeclared blockade, with government shipments delayed and disruptions in supply routes, while the government denies this and blames logistical issues. Hospitals and markets in the area are also facing serious shortages and soaring prices. With a ceasefire in place in the region now, media outlet Etana Syria asserts the blockade is “a form of collective punishment against Suwayda, falling back on a policy of siege after failing to force a military surrender there.”

Following the March massacre, Alawites have been forcibly evicted from their privately owned or publicly rented homes. Others have lost their jobs and have been told not to apply for work and to hide their accent.

The Kurds, meanwhile, are closely observing these developments. Despite an agreement signed in March between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the transitional government, in which the SDF agreed to a ceasefire and to integrate into the national army, the Kurds fear becoming the next targets. If history has taught the Kurdish-led multiethnic military coalition anything, it is that the promises of governments cannot be trusted.

Yazidi people — scattered across Kurdish Syria, northern Iraq and southeast Turkey — have double cause to be afraid, threatened as they are on two fronts: their ethnicity as Kurds and their faith. Against all odds, they have kept their religion alive for centuries, despite oppression and threatened extermination. Indigenous to the region, the Yazidi people have a monotheistic faith that includes elements of Zoroastrianism, Islam and Christianity. 

Jaafar, who is the co-chair of Yazidi House in the Kurdish neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsood and Ashrafiyeh in Aleppo — where Yazidi people hold ceremonies and celebrations — says that while his people were persecuted under the previous government, there has been a shift toward a genocidal mindset against the Yazidis. 

In August, the unfolding horror against the Alawites and the Druze, together with the constant provocation and threats against the Kurds, pushed leaders and activists of these minorities to come together. At a conference in Al-Hasakah, leaders agreed on the need for unity, federalism or decentralization, a secular state and a constitution that guarantees the pluralism of Syria. 

“Diversity isn’t a threat but a treasure that strengthens our unity,” said Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajri, a Druze spiritual leader.

However, the government has previously and explicitly rejected federalism, calling it “division” and stressing the importance of a single, centralized country.

But the country already has a working example of federalism that protects minority rights. In the autonomous Kurdish regions of northern and eastern Syria, diversity and freedom to express one’s identity are ensured. Shop and institutional signs are written in the regions’ three main spoken languages (Kurdish, Arabic and Syriac), education is provided in students’ languages, and the national and religious occasions of those living in the communities are celebrated by the Autonomous Administration as official holidays. All ethnicities in a village or region participate in running institutions and councils, with proportional representation, or in some cases, minimum representation requirements. 

“In the Social Contract of the Autonomous Administration, there is a rule that stipulates the freedom to practice all Yazidi rituals freely,” Jaafar explained. The contract, worked on since 2013, functions much like a constitution and covers social and political life, with an emphasis on women’s rights. Dozens of different cultural communities were involved in its creation and updates. The preamble expresses a hope that the document will “form a basis for building a future Syria, without racist tendencies, discrimination, exclusion or the marginalization of any identity.”

Kurds in Syria are currently forced into a contradictory situation. While they are maintaining some diplomacy with the government in order to avoid clashes or violence, the lack of government movement toward recognizing Kurdish autonomy or other minorities puts them in an adversarial position of pressing for the need for an inclusive federalism.

“We don’t believe any other people or system can protect us from possible genocides other than the Autonomous Administration,” Jaafar said. “It has demonstrated its ability to achieve justice for all of the ethnic and religious groups in Syria.”