Wasim al-Adawi, Yazan Kur, Mohammad Deeb Bazat
The documents, photos, and videos that emerged from Syria during the years of war are no longer merely evidence presented in courts. They have become an open arena of conflict over memory, the narrative of truth, and the limits of transitional justice.
As different parties race to establish their own version of events, a central question has emerged: Who has the right to manage the Syrian archive? Who decides how this evidence should be used, in courts, in national memory, or in politics?
After years of war, Syrians’ battle did not end at exposing crimes and violations. It moved into another battle no less important, the battle to preserve evidence. Every document, photo, or testimony may be the key to revealing the fate of a missing person, evidence in the trial of a perpetrator, or part of the memory of a country seeking to understand what happened. At the same time, loss, concealment, and disputes over archive ownership threaten to waste part of the truth awaited by victims and their families.
The head of the National Commission for Transitional Justice, Abdul Basit Abdul Latif, said in a post on X last May that the paths of “revealing the fate of victims and holding perpetrators of crimes accountable are not postponed demands, but the foundation of justice and the rule of law.”
His comments came in response to a wave of controversy over evidence that recently surfaced regarding the disappearance of Dr. Rania al-Abbasi, her husband, and their six children, after years of conflicting information and searching.
In this file, Enab Baladi opens the discussion with specialists on the fate of evidence and documents linked to the period of rule by the ousted regime, the limits of their use, and the legal and rights based views related to managing and protecting them, at a moment when questions of transitional justice intersect with Syrians’ right to truth, memory, and accountability.
Who Bears Responsibility?
Protecting Evidence Is the State’s First Postwar Test
The first duties and responsibilities of the state and government in the missing persons file are to preserve documents and evidence and prevent their destruction or loss, alongside creating an official mechanism to receive complaints and verify the fate of the missing.
These obligations are not secondary, according to public law expert and member of the committee that drafted the constitutional declaration, Dr. Ahmad Korabi. Rather, they represent the backbone of any serious transitional justice process, especially in countries emerging from large scale conflicts.
Korabi told Enab Baladi that “the most important responsibility at the current stage is preserving evidence,” noting that the period after “liberation” had already witnessed multiple cases of evidence loss, whether related to mass graves, documents, or field recordings.
In the first months, according to Korabi, reporting processes were not running regularly. Official procedures later improved, but the main challenge remained tied to weak social awareness of how to handle sensitive evidence, which makes awareness raising necessary alongside institutional work.
He believes civil society can play an important role in this field, in parallel with the government’s role, not as a substitute for it.
A man searches for the names of his relatives in scattered records and papers in Sednaya prison after the fall of the Syrian regime, December 9, 2024. (Panos Pictures)
Documents, Monopoly, and Who Owns the Truth?
On possession of information related to victims’ fate, Korabi takes a firm position, stressing that:
- No party has the right to keep information without announcing it.
- Any international bodies, civil society organizations, or institutions that possess documents or data related to missing persons are supposed to hand them over to the competent national authorities.
- The only body qualified to manage this file is the National Commission for the Missing, which was established specifically to deal with the file of forcibly disappeared people.
Korabi noted, however, a current legal problem, namely the absence of clear provisions in current Syrian law criminalizing the failure to hand over documents. This creates a legislative vacuum that must be addressed in the expected transitional justice law.
He stressed that this law must include explicit provisions requiring any party that possesses information or documents to hand them over to the competent authorities.
According to Korabi, the expected transitional justice law should include provisions criminalizing any party’s refusal to hand over documents and information in its possession to the National Commission for the Missing or the National Commission for Transitional Justice
Regarding the concealment of evidence, Korabi said criminal law in Syria and any country treats this issue as a criminalized act in many cases, but two problematic issues must be noted:
- When the person possessing the documents is a public employee who received them by virtue of his position, legal questions arise related to grounds for justification and the limits of criminal responsibility.
- When former officials were implementing orders from the public authority in Syria, an issue that is not new but has appeared in many discussions related to holding those individuals accountable.
The Syrian State Moves Through the Foreign Ministry
The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates issued a statement on June 7, stressing that the right of victims and their families to know the truth and access information related to violations they suffered is an inherent human right, a fundamental pillar of justice and the rule of law, and a necessary element for strengthening civil peace and social stability.
Experiences linked to the grave violations Syria witnessed have shown, according to the Syrian Foreign Ministry, that the value of information, documents, and evidence does not lie only in keeping or archiving them, but in using them to serve victims’ families, reveal the truth, clarify the fate of the missing, document violations, and support transitional justice, accountability, reparations, and redress efforts.
In this context, Syria calls on all states, international organizations, and relevant mechanisms that possess information, documents, or evidence related to Syrian affairs to share what they have with the competent national institutions and enable them to benefit from it, in a way that serves victims and their families, reveals the truth, and supports transitional justice, accountability, and national recovery.
Syria also affirms, according to the Foreign Ministry, that making this information available at the appropriate time is a key factor in:
- Reducing the suffering of victims and their families.
- Strengthening trust in national institutions.
- Supporting the work of the National Commission for Transitional Justice and the National Commission for the Missing in a way that helps entrench civil peace and social stability.
Syria also renews its commitment to constructive cooperation with all relevant international partners and its readiness to develop joint partnerships and programs that contribute to serving victims’ families and strengthening the capacities of competent national institutions, in a way that achieves practical results in revealing the truth, entrenching justice, and supporting national recovery and social reconciliation.
Risks of Circulating and Losing Evidence
Public law expert and member of the committee that drafted the constitutional declaration, Dr. Ahmad Korabi, pointed to a set of risks involved in circulating documents and evidence, most notably:
- The psychological or social harm that victims’ families may suffer.
- The risk of evidence being lost.
- The use of evidence in retaliatory contexts.
For this reason, Korabi believes these files must be handled within strict institutional frameworks, not through individual or media based initiatives.
He said some recent cases, such as the case of Rania al-Abbasi’s family, represent an early test for the future of this file, but certainly not the last, given the hundreds of thousands of missing people in Syria according to rights estimates.
The Syrian Archive and the Absence of Institutional Memory
Korabi pauses at the archive file, noting that Syria has historically lacked a specialized national institution to manage archives.
He said there are academic efforts to establish a national archive authority, but this project has not yet been completed. The future management of the archive remains unsettled among several possible bodies: the Ministry of Interior, the National Commission for the Missing, or the National Commission for Transitional Justice.
He believes this decision should be settled within the transitional justice law, given the archive’s close connection to issues of national memory and truth seeking.
At the current stage, the Ministry of Interior appears to be the most present body in this file, but Korabi stressed that the most important issue is not which authority handles it, but ensuring that the archive is protected from loss and damage.
Between Digital Loss and Algorithmic Control
Lawyer Muhannad al-Hassani offers a different reading of the Syrian archive, noting that a large part of digital documents was lost or deleted during the years of war.
The lawyer said the archive of Syria’s security services has become almost unknown, while thousands of videos were deleted from YouTube, especially after 2017, as a result of automated content monitoring systems.
He added that these processes led to the loss of a large part of visual evidence documenting war crimes and widespread violations, as well as erasing part of national memory.
He also noted that the Syrian Archive project documented the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of items from the internet, making the recovery of the full truth extremely difficult.
Al-Hassani believes documents, photos, and videos cannot be confined to a judicial function only. They also play a role in shaping national memory, as societies emerging from conflict cannot build their future on forgetting, but on truth seeking, recognition, accountability, and guarantees of non recurrence.
At the same time, he warns against turning transitional justice into a “visual scene” in which perpetrators are reduced to symbols and victims to emotional images, serving a ready made narrative at the expense of truth.
Who Writes Memory?
Al-Hassani stressed that the most dangerous issue in the transitional phase is control over the public narrative, amid the absence of independent institutions that truly represent victims.
He called for establishing a national council for victims’ families, with oversight and advisory powers in the transitional justice file, ensuring the participation of those who hold the direct right in shaping memory and policies.
Regarding document leaks, al-Hassani believes this process must be handled with extreme caution, because uncontrolled use could turn documents into a media or emotional tool rather than a judicial one.
He warned that some leaks may be used to reinforce a visual image of justice at the expense of the essence of truth.
Documents and personal ID cards lying on the floor at the Air Force Intelligence branch at Mezzeh Military Airport, December 26, 2024. (Taha Bali/Facebook)
Verification and Documentation Challenges, Who Manages the Archive?
With every new development, the issue of missing persons in Syria returns to the forefront of public debate as one of the most complex and intertwined files, not only because of the scale of the human tragedy linked to it, but also because of the nature of the “knowledge” surrounding it. Testimonies mix with images, documents with leaks, and rights investigations with political readings, in a scene where truth intersects with possibilities of interpretation and misuse.
The sensitivity of this file increases with the emergence of legal and ethical questions linked to documentation, such as protecting victims, chain of custody, and the limits of public publication. These issues have long been the focus of debate among rights groups and international judicial bodies, especially as some files rely on cross border investigations whose evidence has been handed over to European judicial authorities.
At least 181,312 people, including thousands of women and children, remained under arbitrary detention or enforced disappearance as of August 2025. Of them, 160,123 were formerly held by the former regime’s security services, while the rest were distributed among detention centers that had been affiliated with other parties.
Syrian Network for Human Rights report on enforced disappearance in Syria, August 2025
The Documentation Problem in the Transitional Phase
The executive director of Syrians for Truth and Justice, Bassam al-Ahmad, told Enab Baladi that the organization had recently received large quantities of material and evidence from random sources, including photos, documents, and personal IDs linked to the file of missing persons and victims in Syria.
Al-Ahmad added that some evidence and documents in Syria were lost or circulated outside organized frameworks, which doubles the difficulty of verifying and documenting them and complicates the process of building complete legal files on committed violations.
He noted that a large part of the evidence was destroyed or lost with the fall of the former regime, and in large numbers. This created a real gap in the documentation process, one that could have been avoided or limited had the file been handled in a more organized way during the phase of Military Operations Administration after the regime’s fall.
Al-Ahmad said what happened reflects the absence of clear priorities during that early transitional stage, which negatively affected the ability of the concerned bodies to protect evidence and ensure that it was not lost or distorted. This made it more difficult to reach a complete and accurate picture of the violations.
Managing Documents Between Protection and Distortion
Amid the huge amount of documents and evidence found after the fall of the regime, warnings are increasing about the risks of disorganized handling of this vast archive, not only at the level of legal documentation, but also at the level of social and security consequences linked to the possibility of leaking or circulating sensitive information outside official frameworks.
Here emerges the problem of managing these materials, and which body is authorized to preserve and organize them and ensure their use within the transitional justice process without harming individuals or society.
There are multiple risks that may result from mishandling these documents, including the possibility of causing social harm, damaging people’s reputations, or exposing individuals to danger.
Bassam Al-Ahmad
Executive Director of Syrians for Truth and Justice
Regarding the body that should have authority to manage this archive, al-Ahmad believes that, in principle, all concerned parties may have the right to access documents related to their fields. But the matter differs in the context of transitional justice, where he believes the National Commission for Transitional Justice should have the central supervisory role over this archive, and should also have the authority to access all documents.
Al-Ahmad noted that managing this file also requires a clear distribution of roles among institutions, with:
- The Ministry of Justice handling tasks related to the judicial track.
- The Ministry of Interior handling protection and archiving tasks as well, to ensure the archive is handled according to professional and legal standards that preserve information integrity and prevent its misuse.
Verifying Evidence Before Relying on It Is a Complex Task
As the volume of circulating materials linked to violations and missing persons files in Syria expands, verifying the authenticity of photos, videos, and documents before relying on them as sources of information or evidence becomes increasingly important.
In this context, Bassam al-Ahmad believes that verifying photos and videos is a highly complex and sensitive task, and cannot be handled superficially or by relying only on the visible content of circulating materials.
al-Ahmad pointed to the example of some images attributed to former regime noncommissioned officer Amjad Yousef in the case of Rania al-Abbasi’s children, which turned out to be images generated using artificial intelligence technologies. He considered such cases confirmation of the need to subject any circulating material to multiple rounds of scrutiny before building on it.
He explained that verification is not limited to examining the image or video itself. It also includes studying the filming location, publication date, identity of the people appearing in the material, and cross checking this information with testimonies and data held by rights organizations and bodies specialized in documentation.
Regarding security documents, al-Ahmad stressed that they do not necessarily represent a final truth or conclusive evidence on their own. He explained that this type of document may be vulnerable to forgery or manipulation, requiring multiple levels of verification before it is adopted.
Reaching the truth cannot rely on one document, one photo, or one individual testimony. It requires building an integrated narrative based on the intersection of evidence, testimonies, and different documents, ensuring the highest levels of accuracy and credibility.
Bassam al-Ahmad
Executive Director of Syrians for Truth and Justice
Database of Missing Persons
According to al-Ahmad, a comprehensive national database of missing persons has not yet been created, despite the urgent need for a central reference that brings together data, documents, and testimonies related to this file.
Al-Ahmad noted that Syria today possesses millions of documents that could constitute an extremely important source for understanding the country’s history, the nature of the security services’ work, decision making mechanisms in security matters, and the patterns of violations committed over many years.
He considered that the value of these documents is not limited to helping determine the fate of missing persons or supporting judicial accountability paths. It also extends to helping build a deeper understanding of the structure of the former security regime and the way its institutions worked, contributing to writing a more accurate narrative of the past phase.
Al-Ahmad believes this reality increases the importance of having a clear national framework for managing the Syrian archive, one that ensures documents are protected, preserved, and used in the service of truth and justice, away from fragmentation, loss, or selective use.
Families examine scattered papers in Sednaya prison while searching for the names of their relatives, December 31, 2024. (Asia News Agency)
The Problem of Managing Information
Syrian rights defender and transitional justice specialist Mansour al-Omari believes the problem is not only about revealing the truth, but also about the way information and files related to victims and missing persons are managed, especially when multiple parties work on the same case without clear coordination among them.
Al-Omari told Enab Baladi that the work of rights organizations, judicial bodies, and institutions concerned with missing persons files in parallel and separately may reproduce trauma for victims and their families, through conflicting information or the leaking of sensitive details without proper preparation, causing them additional harm.
He added that the specificity of the Syrian context lies in the multiplicity of local and international actors, which sometimes work within very similar mandates. He considered that separate work, even when its motives are good, may lead to fragmented efforts and conflicting interests instead of complementarity.
According to al-Omari, the right to knowledge is not limited to victims’ families alone. It extends to society as a whole, as a collective right linked to revealing the truth of the violations the country witnessed.
He considered that the main lesson raised by the case of Rania al-Abbasi’s children is the need for a clear and binding protocol regulating the work of all parties concerned with files of missing persons and violations, stressing that coordination is not only an organizational matter, but an essential part of the principle of protecting victims and safeguarding their rights.
Regarding information management, al-Omari believes issuing clarifying statements after controversy or harm occurs is not the ideal option. What is needed is a continuous communication policy with the public and the media, allowing periodic updates on the course of investigations without harming them.
The right to know the truth is not limited to revealing information. It also includes the way that information is managed, the timing of its announcement, and coordination among the parties that possess it, ensuring the protection of victims and their families from new harm during the search for truth.
Mansour al-Omari
Syrian rights defender specializing in transitional justice issues
A Right for Families and Society
The director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, Fadel Abdulghany, believes the right to know the truth is not limited to the families of victims and missing persons. It extends to society as a whole, as a right tied to revealing the truth of grave violations and understanding the circumstances that allowed them to occur.
Abdulghany told Enab Baladi that international law has increasingly enshrined this right, especially in cases of enforced disappearance. He explained that knowing the fate of the victim is one element of the right to truth, but is not enough on its own to complete it.
He added that the right to know the truth includes knowing the facts linked to the violation, the identity of those responsible for it, the fate of victims, and an understanding of the institutional and political context that enabled those violations to occur.
According to Abdulghany, revealing the fate of Rania al-Abbasi’s children represents an important step toward knowing the truth, but does not mean this right has been completed. Knowing the fate, which answers the questions “what happened?” and “where did the victim end up?”, differs from achieving justice. Justice is tied to identifying those responsible for the crime and holding them accountable through independent legal and judicial paths.
He stressed that handling this file requires combining truth seeking, accountability, reparations, and guarantees of non recurrence, as integrated paths that cannot replace one another.
According to Abdulghany, knowing the truth cannot become a substitute for justice. Rather, the two must move together. Truth commissions and documentation mechanisms may help reveal facts and build the general narrative of violations, but they do not replace prosecutions when grave crimes are involved.
Two fighters inspect scattered documents on the floor of Sednaya Military Prison after the fall of the Syrian regime, December 9, 2024. (AP)
Between the Duty to Document and Families’ Rights
Where Does the Responsibility of Journalists and Researchers Stand?
Over the past years, investigative journalists and rights researchers have played a central role in exposing many crimes and violations that took place in Syria, through collecting documents and testimonies and analyzing images and video recordings that were otherwise inaccessible.
With growing reliance on digital materials and leaked documents in documenting crimes, questions emerge about the responsibility of researchers and journalists when they obtain evidence that may help reveal the fate of victims or identify perpetrators, and about the mechanisms that ensure these materials are used without violating professional and ethical standards.
Investigative journalist Ahmad Haj Hamdo believes balancing the public’s right to know information with the right of victims’ families not to be exposed to additional trauma is one of the most complex issues in the ethics of journalistic work, especially in files linked to enforced disappearance and grave violations.
Haj Hamdo told Enab Baladi that media institutions may face internal divisions, even among their journalists, when dealing with such cases, between those who see publication as necessary and those who call for refraining from it. He considered that making the decision requires an ethical assessment model that balances the public interest with the rights of victims and their families.
He added that communicating with families and informing them personally remains the best option when possible, not to grant them the right to control journalistic content, but to prevent families from receiving shocking news about the fate of their children through the media or social media, as happened in the case of Dr. Rania al-Abbasi’s children.
The Syrian journalist noted that publication does not necessarily mean revealing all the materials possessed by a media institution. Humanitarian considerations may require showing only the basic information without publishing photos, recordings, or details that may violate victims’ dignity or increase the suffering of their families.
A Journalist’s Responsibility to Assess the Consequences of Publication
Haj Hamdo believes handing materials over to competent authorities becomes the most appropriate option when publishing them threatens the course of justice, such as when it could lead suspects to flee or escape accountability, or when it poses a danger to victims, witnesses, or information sources.
He added that a journalist’s responsibility is not limited to obtaining and publishing materials. It also includes assessing the possible consequences of publication and the extent of its impact on judicial and investigative processes.
Regarding the multiplicity of parties involved in documentation, Haj Hamdo said the problem is not limited to journalists and rights organizations, but also extends to judicial authorities, especially in cross border crimes such as Assad’s crimes, which are being examined by different bodies and courts.
He considered that multiple parties working separately may scatter evidence and fragment information. It may also lead to the publication of incomplete or insufficient information, or its disclosure at an inappropriate time, which could negatively affect the case itself.
Truth Is Not a Media Race
Haj Hamdo stressed that the search for truth should not turn into a media race, considering that the essence of journalistic work is serving the public interest, not achieving a scoop in itself.
He explained that the decision to publish should be preceded by an ethical assessment that considers the importance of the material to the public interest and the value it will add, against the potential harm that may be caused to victims, their families, or justice processes.
The journalist noted that this balance remains an essential part of the professional responsibility of journalists working on files of grave violations.
Syrian researcher and Syria file officer at the SKeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom at Lebanon’s Samir Kassir Foundation, Jaber Baker, believes balancing the public’s right to know with the right of victims’ families not to be exposed to additional trauma is one of the most complex issues in Syrian media and rights work.
Baker told Enab Baladi that, over the past years, files concerning victims were often handled with a logic of seeking interaction and reach, more than as a commitment to clear professional and ethical standards. He considered that some practices contributed to turning the pain of victims and their families into material circulated before public opinion.
He added that priority should be given to families’ right to know and make decisions, as they are the party most affected by the publication of photos or information related to their relatives. He pointed to the need for clear ethical frameworks defining how images and materials linked to victims should be used.
Documents and records at the Palestine Branch of the former Syrian regime’s intelligence services, December 9, 2024. (Panos Pictures)
Rejecting the Publication of Victims’ Photos
Baker considered that publishing photos of the dead or victims after their death is inconsistent with the ethical standards that should govern media and rights work. He called for publishing only photos of victims during their lives and not circulating images or scenes that violate their dignity after they have been killed.
He added that the issue goes beyond the professional aspect to the ethical dimension, asking whether media or research institutions would deal in the same way if those scenes documented victims from other societies.
He noted that publishing recordings showing moments of killing or execution, such as some clips linked to grave violations, cannot be justified from an ethical perspective, even when the goal is to document the crime or prove that it happened.
Turning the search for truth into a media race is a challenge that is difficult to address in the absence of unified standards. The issue is largely linked to the ethics of individuals and institutions and their understanding of the role the media is supposed to play in society.
Jaber Baker
Syrian researcher
Media and Publication, Unpacking the Two Concepts
Public law expert Dr. Ahmad Korabi distinguishes between two concepts that are often confused: informing victims’ families and publishing information. Informing families of the fate of their loved ones is an inherent right that cannot be restricted and must be guaranteed through clear official mechanisms, something some institutions have begun working on through protocols for psychological support and notification.
Public publication, however, is a different matter. It is linked to goals such as revealing the truth, preserving memory, and preventing recurrence, and is not an independent right in itself.
Accordingly, what is required in the missing persons file is to ensure that information reaches victims’ families, not necessarily to circulate it fully in the public sphere.
Korabi believes the right to know the truth is a fundamental and absolute right in principle, but like other rights, it is subject to regulatory controls. He noted that these controls include protecting witnesses, preserving privacy, ensuring the integrity of investigations, and preventing acts of revenge.
But Korabi warned that these controls must not turn into tools to block the truth or obstruct access to it. He stressed that they should regulate only the method of disclosure without affecting the essence of the right, emphasizing that all victims in Syria have the right to know the fate of their relatives, even when not all details are available in some cases.
Poll: Who Has the Right to Possess Evidence of War Crimes in Syria?
Enab Baladi conducted a poll on its website about which party should preserve and possess evidence of war crimes in Syria. A total of 1,932 people participated in the poll, which ran from June 3 to 11.
According to the poll results, 41% of participants said Syrian state institutions are the party most entitled to possess this evidence, while 13% said this task should fall to independent international bodies. Meanwhile, 24% of participants supported sharing this responsibility between both sides.
Another 22% of participants said they did not trust any party to possess evidence of war crimes in Syria.
Who Has the Right to Possess Evidence of War Crimes in Syria?
Syrian state institutions
Independent international bodies
Both sides together
I do not trust any party
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