A few days removed from the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the magnitude of the challenges facing Syria and its transitional government is coming into focus. The Assad family’s autocratic rule, stretching back more than 50 years, and the Syrian Civil War that began in 2011 have created interwoven challenges for Syrian society. They will need to be addressed to create any sort of stability–and for the new government, legitimacy—in the country.
The first challenge that is becoming immediately visible is the scale of the atrocities committed in Assad’s brutal prison system, which predates the civil war but grew in size and severity once the conflict began. Inside the regime’s prisons, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, were detained, tortured and killed. Rebels have now liberated the prisoners, but many of them need significant humanitarian assistance in light of the severe trauma they have experienced. And a lack of records is making reuniting people with their families—as well as simply determining who is still alive—incredibly complicated.
That also raises the broader question of transitional justice. The caretaker government led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, said it plans to hold officials from the Assad regime accountable, but the degree to which Syria’s institutions will be capable of doing so remains an open question. Transitional justice is a massive undertaking that requires complicated investigations and judicial processes, which is why it is common for post-dictatorship and post-conflict states to receive multilateral assistance in doing so. There remains a lack of clarity on whether the Syrian government will receive that kind of assistance, especially with international recognition still undetermined.