الشبكة السورية لحقوق الانسان ( كما وصل لبريدنا الالكتروني ). تقرير بالانجليزية - وللقراء ترجتمه

By, Salah El Din Mohssein

23-7-2026

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 From ,  Release, from ,The Syrian Network for Human Rights (as received in our email)

Thu 2026-07-23

 Syrian Network For Human Rights

Press Release:

 

Damascus, July 23, 2026: The Syrian Network for Human Rights issued a report titled: Violations of Property against Women in Syria Since 2011: Patterns of Expropriation and Their Impact on Women in the Context of Conflict and The Transitional Phase. The report included 35 accounts of women from different Syrian governorates out of tens of witness and victims interviews. These witness interviews, conducted between January 2025 and March 2026, concludes that the former Assad Regime used property rights as a tool for punishment, political subjugation, and demographic engineering, and that the fall of the regime on December 8, 2024, did not automatically lead to the restoration of stolen rights, but rather created new challenges related to the complexity and high cost of procedures and the absence of clear mechanisms for redress and compensation.

Documented Violation Patterns

The report categorized violations into three main overlapping categories: direct property violations, arbitrary legal or administrative measures, and discriminatory socioeconomic factors. Documented patterns include the loss of property rights due to forced displacement; loss resulting from bombing and widespread or deliberate destruction of property; use of civilian property for military purposes; arbitrary precautionary and executive seizure and confiscation; confiscation related to the detention and actual or perceived political affiliation of family members; expropriation through exceptional legislation and coercive urban planning; loss of legal documents; falsification and deliberate manipulation of property records; restrictions on access to justice and effective remedies; loss of inheritance rights in the context of family disputes; and financial extortion in exchange for maintaining or disposing of property.

The report indicates that these patterns interacted with a pre-existing discriminatory structure, where property registration was often in the names of husbands, fathers, or male relatives who were arrested, forcibly disappeared, killed, or displaced, placing women in a weaker legal position in the absence of the registered owner. This was compounded by the structurally low rate of women officially registered as property owners before the conflict, a consequence of social norms, economic dependency, and limited legal awareness, further exacerbating their vulnerability to property loss.

The report documents how the former Assad regime resorted to seizure and confiscation through exceptional courts, particularly the Terrorism Court established by Legislative Decree No. 63 of 2012, based on Counterterrorism Law No. 19 of 2012, without respecting fair trial guarantees. It also relied on expropriation legislation, including Law No. 10 of 2018 and Legislative Decree No. 66 of 2012, which imposed unrealistic deadlines for proving ownership and led to the administrative seizure of properties belonging to displaced persons and refugees. The report notes that women who reclaimed their properties after the regime's fall often found them destroyed or in need of costly repairs beyond their financial means.

Fadel Abdulghany, Executive Director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, said: “The denial of property rights to Syrian women during the armed conflict was part of a systematic policy targeting opponents of the former regime and their families, and was linked to a legislative and administrative framework designed to enshrine the seizure and give it formal legitimacy. The compounded effect of this policy on women stems from its intersection with previous structural discrimination in real estate registration, inheritance, and guardianship of property.” Abdulghany added: "The transitional phase places an obligation on the Syrian authorities to establish an independent property restitution body that adopts streamlined and low-cost procedures, and is based on a legal framework that enables the families of the forcibly disappeared, especially the wives, to manage the property of the missing."

 

 

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