SACD Review

January 2022

SACD in 2021: Hard Fight for Displaced Syrians’ Rights

2021 has seen SACD fully assume its position of a voice of displaced Syrians recognized in key decision making forums, with access and ability to make the policy makers aware of the position and rights of displaced Syrians when discussing policies that affect them.

We continued to struggle on several key fronts: documenting and reporting on the ongoing displacement, fighting premature return, establishing the concept of safe environment as the key precondition for safe and dignified return and any hope for a lasting peace in Syria and preventing normalization of a regime that continues a systematic policy of displacement, repression and demographic change. Read our full 2021 year in review. 

Syrian regime’s amnesties are public relations stunts with dangerous consequences for displaced Syrians

The Syrian Association for Citizens’ Dignity (SACD) considers the latest amnesty decree issued by the Syrian regime, to pardon “military defectors,” as a dangerous attempt to entice displaced Syrians, especially young men, back to an unsafe Syria where they face forced disappearance, arbitrary arrest, torture and death.

We believe that the regime which continues to imprison tens of thousands of detainees without a valid reason, which has relentlessly killed, tortured, imprisoned, starved and displaced its people has no legitimacy to issue amnesties and that it is the members of the regime who should be the ones seeking pardon.

Deir ez-Zor sees few options as widely rejected ‘reconciliation’ starts

Shortly after the 2020 conference on refugee return organized by Russia in Damascus, the Syrian regime began to pressure the displaced to return to their areas in DeirEzzor, through confiscating their property and assets claiming they were “ownerless”. Here is how the Assad regime is actively engaged in forced displacement and demographic change all over Syria.

Demolition of informal housing in Hama as another example of planned displacement

The people of Hama have been targeted by the Assad regime for decades. Expropriation of land and displacement have been employed as tools of collective punishment. Its victims see no way to get any sort of justice; many are simply struggling to survive. Read more on how the Assad regime is using demolition of informal housing as a method of forced and planned displacement.