Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of the jihadist terror organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), signed into law a “constitutional declaration” that imposes an Islamist “temporary” constitution on the country intended to create a legal framework that allows it to function while its new rulers rebuild from the civil war.
“We hope that will be a new chapter for Syria to replace ignorance with knowledge and suffering with mercy,” Sharaa said after signing the new constitution into law, according to the now-HTS-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).
According to SANA, the new constitution “stipulates freedom of opinion, expression, information, publication, and the press, it also emphasizes the State’s commitment to the unity of the land and people and respect for cultural specificities.” It additionally bans any behavior that allegedly “glorifies” the defunct Assad regime.
The HTS-controlled committee that drafted the constitutional text issued its own statement in which it confirmed that the new constitution is Islamist in nature: declaring Islamic law “the main source” of legislation, asserting, “this jurisprudence is a true treasure that should not be squandered.” It creates three separate government powers – an executive, a legislative, and a judicial – but gives Sharaa almost complete power to choose who serves on the temporary legislature intended to carry Syria through reconstruction to a point at which it can competently hold elections.
In their declaration, the constitutional drafting committee emphasized the independence of the judiciary, suggesting that Sharaa will have little input in how the new government’s sharia courts behave. While that emphasis suggests robust separation of powers, it also indicates that Islamist clerics will have outsized power in the country. Sharaa himself indicated this may be the case in an interview with the BBC in December when asked if his regime would allow alcohol sales, answering that this was a “legal issue” he would not have power over.
The constitution also mandates that the president of the country be Muslim, a provision that also existed in the Assad-era constitution, according to the Associated Press.
“We hope the step would be a good opening for the Syrian people on the path of construction and development.” Sharaa expressed after signing the new constitution.
HTS leaders have claimed that the interim constitution will remain in power only as long as it takes for the government to establish a new constitutional convention to draft a permanent federal legal instrument. Sharaa has indicated such a process could take years in the past.
After nearly a decade and a half of civil war, HTS took over Syria after toppling the regime of longtime dictator Bashar Assad in December. Sharaa was officially declared “interim” president of the country in January and has prioritized a campaign to encourage foreign countries to lift sanctions on Syria imposed against Assad. Most countries sanctioning the Assad regime have been hesitant to lift those sanctions given HTS’s status as an offshoot of Al Qaeda – the terrorist organization responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the American homeland – and widespread concerns of persecution of Alawites, Christians, Kurds, Druze, and other minorities in the country.
This weekend, predictions of “revenge” massacres of Alawites, members of a sect of Shia Islam to which Assad and his family belong, came true as reports indicated that roving Sunni jihadists engaged in a killing spree against the community. The monitor organization the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that as many 1,500 people were killed between March 6 and 8, hundreds of them civilians and many targeted in their own homes. Eyewitnesses described drone attacks on residential communities, the killing of civilians on rooftops, and discovery of mass graves. Some reports suggested that the violence did not stop at Alawites and some jihadis approached Christian communities, warning that they would be next to face their wrath.
Sharaa’s regime insisted that the violence began because a faction of Assad loyalists in Latakia governate, an Alawite stronghold, attacked the HTS regime. After the international community expressed alarm and disgust at reports of the situation, however, Sharaa promised to establish a “committee” to investigate potential crimes against humanity.
The new constitution appears to be part of a public relations blitz following the eruption of anti-Alawite violence in the nation’s coastal areas. It follows the landmark signing of an agreement between HTS and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led militia that is allied with the United States and played the primary role in the extermination of the Islamic State “caliphate” based in northern Raqqa, Syria. While the SDF and HTS did not have many direct conflicts during the civil war, Kurdish groups in Rojava, or Syrian Kurdistan, have long called for the establishment of a sovereign Kurdish state to protect themselves from genocidal violence. The Kurds have been facing years of violence from neighboring Turkey, both Turkish government attacks and an ongoing campaign by informal Turkish proxy forces to remove them from the Syrian-Turkish border.
Sharaa signed an agreement with SDF commander Mazloum Abdi on Monday that formally integrated the SDF into the armed forces of Syria, rather than allowing it to continue to exist as a militia independent of a state. The agreement included provisions declaring Kurds “indigenous” Syrians and vowing that the HTS government would not persecute them.
“The United States welcomes the recently announced agreement between the Syrian interim authorities and the Syrian Democratic Forces to integrate the northeast into a unified Syria,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement on Tuesday. “The United States reaffirms its support for a political transition that demonstrates credible, non-sectarian governance as the best path to avoid further conflict. We will continue to watch the decisions made by the interim authorities, noting with concern the recent deadly violence against minorities.”
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