8 min read Justice Policy
The Weaponization of Inherited Legislation to Restrict the Civic Space in Syria’s Transition

The Weaponization of Inherited Legislation to Restrict the Civic Space in Syria’s Transition

The detention of British-Syrian activist Hassan Akkad on the night of 17 June 2026 prompted an immediate public reaction in Syria and internationally, raising broader concerns about the use of unreformed legal frameworks to restrict expression and civic oversight. Akkad was apprehended in a Damascus café by members of the Criminal Security Directorate's cybercrime branch, without a warrant being presented at the scene, following his Give Us the Money You Owe campaign demanding that prominent businessmen and media figures honor financial pledges made to Syrian relief and reconstruction.

Akkad’s case was processed under Legislative Decree No. 17 of 2012, revised under Law No. 20 of 2022, laws adopted by the Assad government as instruments of political control and which remain in effect. While he was released several days later, the procedural failures surrounding his arrest and failure to officially review the legality of his detention, underscore how activists and advocates remain vulnerable to discretionary enforcement of legal instruments passed down by the former government. The weaponization of these instruments actively undermines freedom of expression, narrows civic participation, and challenges the credibility of Syria's transitional justice commitments. Their fundamental reform should be an early legislative priority once the People's Assembly, whose members were elected in October 2025, holds its first session, expected imminently following the announcement of presidential appointments.

Recent arrests of civic actors

Hassan Akkad is a human rights activist who was detained twice and tortured by the Assad government at Branch 215, before fleeing Syria in 2015. He returned after Assad's fall, launching the online campaign that would become the subject of legal action following a complaint filed by Moussa al-Omar, in early June 2026, alleging defamation over Akkad's questioning of whether Omar had fulfilled a $10,000 pledge to Homs governorate. Following a series of videos targeting their brands, two other complaints were filed by companies linked to sanctioned businessman Mohammad Hamsho, who signed an opaque settlement agreement with the transitional authorities in January 2026.

According to the Damascus Public Prosecutor’s office, Akkad had been summoned several times to appear before the cybercrime branch prior to the public prosecution issuing a search notice against him. On 17 June, reportedly masked officers from the branch detained him without presenting a warrant, a request to see one remained unanswered. No official information was provided on where he was being held. Al-Omar subsequently instructed his lawyer to drop the complaint and Akkad was released shortly after. The two complaints filed by Hamsho-linked companies remained active at the time of his release and it remains unclear what legal proceedings, if any, continue against him.

A wider pattern of restriction

The same pattern surfaces across a wider set of cases documented over the preceding year, reflecting a broader struggle over the space available for civic engagement in Syria’s transition.

Detained on 2 June 2026 by the Criminal Security Directorate and initially processed through the electronic crimes branch, Ibrahim Sheikh al-Shabab and Yasser Abbas had been appointed by Damascus residents to organize and negotiate compensation over Decree 66, an Assad-era decree widely documented as a vehicle for property confiscation benefiting government-connected figures. The Damascus governorate responded by filing a complaint against them invoking two other inherited instruments: Law No. 20 of 2022 on cybercrime and Legislative Decree No. 54 of 2011, Assad's anti-demonstrations decree. At their first hearing, both men were charged with undermining state authority, alongside systematic incitement, spreading false news online, and undermining the reputation of a public institution.

Elsewhere, the same legal tools have been turned against individuals engaged in local civic life. Mazen Arja, a media activist and survivor of detention and torture under Assad, was summoned to the police station in Idlib in June 2025 and detained after posting a Facebook video criticizing a local decision to build a mosque inside the neighborhood’s only public park. Charged with contempt of religion, he was held for 63 days without being presented before an independent judicial authority. He was detained again in May 2026 and held for 22 days, this time on charges of undermining the dignity of the state and the presidency following his participation in a civic sit-in in Damascus. More recently, in June 2026, Raed Hamdo, an activist in Al-Qatifah in rural Damascus, was detained by security forces following a complaint filed by a district official over a Facebook post criticizing local administration.

Similarly, Noor Suleiman, a journalist and activist who had previously criticized the government over violence on the Syrian coast and in Suwayda, was detained without charges by the political security branch in Damascus in July 2025, following two consecutive raids on her home. Allegedly summoned to delete footage she had filmed of the first raid, she was detained when she appeared and held for five days without her family or lawyer being granted access. The Minister of Information intervened to secure her release while stating the arrest had no connection to her journalistic work. Days later, the General Prosecutor issued an arrest warrant charging her with spreading false news under the cybercrime law, for a Facebook post on attacks against the Alawite community.

The cases above do not represent the full scope of freedom restrictions since the transition began, the Committee to Protect Journalists has documented further instances involving detained and missing journalists across the country. The legal mechanisms employed vary, but all derive from a legal structure that was not reformed when the Assad government fell, and whose availability has since been readily exploited.

These arrests reflect a broader pattern of legal continuity, in which Assad-era legislation continues to affect the scope of civic participation.

The first is the cybercrime framework. Legislative Decree No. 17 of 2012 extended Syria’s long-standing security-state logic into the digital sphere, providing a legal basis to pursue citizens for digital expression critical of the government by penalizing anyone who allegedly incites or promotes crime online. This formulation was deliberately broad enough to encompass political commentary, civic campaigns, and any content the authorities wished to suppress. Law No. 20 of 2022 expanded this framework further, introducing wider scope, new offence categories, and penalties reaching fifteen years of imprisonment for online speech. The Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression and Syrians for Truth and Justice both documented that the 2022 law was structured to criminalize expression under the pretext of combating cybercrime, and its requirement that internet service providers retain traffic data on all subscribers meant the law also functioned as a surveillance instrument.

The scope of enforceable restrictions on online expression has since expanded beyond the inherited framework. Shortly after Hassan Akkad’s arrest, the Ministry of Information published a list of six categories of banned online content, including fake news and misleading content, contempt of religions and religious symbols, and material offending public morals and ethics. Issued by ministerial decree rather than legislation, these restrictions are framed broadly and extend enforcement well beyond what the cybercrime laws themselves prescribe, and into territory that directly implicates civic commentary and accountability journalism.

The second legal instrument is Legislative Decree No. 54 of 2011. It was issued nominally to regulate the right to protest, but structured to restrict and criminalize it, requiring Ministry of Interior approval for any demonstration and classifying any unauthorized gathering as a riot subject to criminal penalties. Issued as Assad was violently suppressing the 2011 uprising, its maintenance reinstates the same conditions used against protesters at that time, a concern renewed in 2025 when the transitional government issued its own interior ministry circular replicating an equivalent permit system.

The third is Decree 66 of 2012, an urban redevelopment decree that enabled the forced clearance of residential areas in Damascus, displacing tens of thousands while channeling development contracts to regime-connected interests. Widely documented as a tool of demographic engineering, it targeted communities that had opposed the government, stripping residents of property rights in the complete absence of adequate compensation. A partial suspension was announced in October 2025, but ongoing projects continue and affected residents have received no restitution. The detention of those who organized against Decree 66 under the cybercrime and anti-demonstration frameworks shows how Assad-era legal tools continue to reinforce one another: one sustains a project rooted in the former government's political economy, while the others are used to suppress those demanding redress.

Selectively, and outside the scope of executive competence under a framework that reserves legislative authority exclusively to the People's Assembly, the current authorities have moved to amend inherited laws by executive decree, for instance adjusting Investment Law No. 18 of 2021, repealing existing petroleum decrees and dissolving associated institutions by Decree No. 189 of October 2025, and suspending Social Security Law No. 92 of 1959. Yet none of the laws restricting civic expression have been repealed. The contrast makes clear that inaction on civic expression laws reflects a choice, rather than a constraint, even as their continued enforcement appears to conflict with the transitional authorities' own Constitutional Declaration of March 2025.

Syria's Constitutional Declaration of 13 March 2025, signed by President Ahmed Al-Sharaa and governing the five-year transitional period, provides the legal benchmark against which these arrests should be assessed. Article 13 guarantees freedom of opinion, expression, information, publication, and the press, protections directly engaged by the civic activity at issue in the cases raised. Article 17 further establishes due process guarantees, including the right to legal representation and the presumption of innocence. Yet across the cases examined above, lawyers reported restricted access and no transparent legal process was initiated. Relatedly, Article 18 prohibits arrest without a court-issued decision; however, in multiple instances, no warrants were shown at the time of arrest, despite requests to produce one.

This gap between formal guarantees and actual practice is compounded by Article 23, which allows rights to be restricted on vague grounds of national security and public safety without judicial review. Its consequences for how Syrians can engage with their own transition are already being felt.

Implications for transitional justice and recommendations

Future accountability in Syria will depend on the evidentiary work of civil society and the broader civic space needed for survivors and affected communities to scrutinize decisions and organize around rights claims. Practices that treat this work as a matter for criminal enforcement do not only suppress expression; they insulate both transitional justice and physical reconstruction from the public scrutiny on which their legitimacy depends. Meaningful accountability requires that those most affected can participate in shaping it without fear of legal reprisal.

SJAC condemns the use of inherited legislation against activists, journalists, and community representatives engaged in accountability work, peaceful advocacy, and documentation. Following the public reaction to Akkad's arrest, the Ministry of Justice issued a circular instructing prosecutors to limit cybercrime arrest warrants to serious offences and treat pretrial detention as exceptional rather than routine, a welcome step that nonetheless restrains enforcement without narrowing the legal reach of decrees stifling public criticism.

SJAC calls on the Syrian transitional authorities to:

  • Establish binding procedural safeguards requiring that officers identify themselves and present a warrant at the moment of arrest, and mandate disclosure of charges, legal basis, and detention location within 24 hours to family members and legal representatives, in compliance with Articles 17 and 18 of the Constitutional Declaration.
  • Prioritize repeal or fundamental reform of inherited laws such as Legislative Decree No. 17 of 2012, Law No. 20 of 2022, and Legislative Decree No. 54 of 2011. This should be treated as an early priority for the People’s Assembly in its first session and guided by the rights framework set out in the Constitutional Declaration, as well as Syria’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
  • Guarantee civil society organizations, journalists, and human rights defenders the ability to operate freely, document abuses, and engage with transitional processes without legal sanction, in line with Article 13 of the Constitutional Declaration.

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