Eleven years have passed since the chemical massacre committed by the Syrian regime in rural Damascus on August 21, 2013, which killed over a thousand people, most of them children who died from asphyxiation. Human rights organizations continue their efforts to hold al-Assad accountable.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) issued a report on Monday, August 11, marking the 11th anniversary of the chemical massacre. The Syrian regime launched four chemical weapon attacks on populated areas in Eastern Ghouta and Moadamiyat al-Sham in Western Ghouta, using at least ten rockets loaded with toxic gases.
The chemical bombardment resulted in the death of 1,144 people from asphyxiation, including 1,119 civilians (99 children and 194 women) and 25 opposition fighters. Additionally, 5,935 people suffered respiratory symptoms and cases of asphyxiation, according to the SNHR.
Steps towards accountability
On October 7, 2020, the Justice Initiative, the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, and the Syrian Archive Initiative, as part of the Mnemonic Project to document human rights violations, filed a criminal complaint with the German Federal Public Prosecutor against Syrian officials regarding the use of sarin gas in several Syrian cities.
In March 2021, the three organizations filed a similar complaint before French investigating judges, including extensive testimonies from many survivors of the chemical attacks launched by the Syrian regime on Douma and Eastern Ghouta in August 2013. This was the first criminal complaint submitted against Bashar al-Assad in France regarding the chemical weapons issue.
One month later, another complaint was filed in Sweden to hold the Syrian regime accountable for using sarin gas in two attacks: one on Eastern Ghouta in 2013 and the second on Khan Sheikhoun in 2017.
Ongoing investigations led to the issuance of four arrest warrants in November 2023, on charges of complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The warrants targeted Bashar al-Assad, his brother Maher, and two other senior figures: Brigadier General Ghasan Abbas, director of the Branch 450 affiliated with the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, and Bassam al-Hassan, Assad’s strategic affairs advisor and liaison officer between the presidential palace and the research center.
After repeated hearings, the French judiciary confirmed the arrest warrant for Bashar al-Assad on June 26, despite the French national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office requesting its cancellation under the personal immunity that heads of state enjoy before foreign courts.
Criminal law expert al-Mutassim al-Kilani said that following the international litigation path is long and requires patience, but Syrians have achieved the first and most significant step in holding al-Assad accountable, reflected in the French judiciary’s issuance of international arrest warrants against Bashar al-Assad, his brother, and two officers. There are also high hopes pinned on the complaints filed in Germany and Sweden.
Al-Kilani added to Enab Baladi that holding al-Assad and his aides accountable for chemical attacks would result in two outcomes: affirming that there is no political future for war criminals and crimes against humanity in Syria, as the arrest warrants and judicial proceedings would make Syria a prison they cannot leave.
The second outcome is tightening the clamp on the policy of impunity witnessed globally today. If Assad and Russia were held accountable for their violations in Syria, we wouldn’t see the current situation where crimes expand and impunity increases regionally and globally, according to al-Kilani.
“A sword over Assad’s neck”
Despite the long period that has passed since the Ghouta massacre and the state of impunity and international complicity preventing accountability for the regime, survivors and victims’ families insist on holding the perpetrators accountable, compensating the victims, and affirming Syrians’ right to know the truth.
In 2021, survivors and families of chemical attack victims established the Association of Victims of Chemical Weapons (AVCW), aiming to hold Syrian regime security and military leaders accountable for these attacks.
Haitham al-Badawi, a member of the association, who worked at a medical point in the Jobar neighborhood during the chemical massacre, resulting in his injury from inhaling toxic gases, told Enab Baladi that the survivors and victims of the chemical attack are like a “sword over Assad’s neck,” as they are the case owners and real witnesses to that massacre, playing a crucial role in the path to holding al-Assad accountable.
Al-Badawi added that, “To push forward the file of Assad’s accountability, the Association of Victims of Chemical Weapons was established, formed by those affected by the chemical attack, whether directly injured or indirectly affected by losing their loved ones. The association partnered with the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression on the lawsuits filed in Europe to hold al-Assad accountable for his involvement in the chemical attack on Eastern Ghouta.
Before the establishment of the association, some members who were affected by the chemical attack filed lawsuits against the Syrian regime and continued these lawsuits after the association was formed. They contributed their testimonies in courts, leading to the issuance of arrest warrants for al-Assad and his aides by the French judiciary.
Besides the association’s role in the legal field, it also works politically by bringing the case and promoting it to top politicians. This includes the association members’ meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in August 2023, where they presented Assad’s and Russia’s crimes against the Syrian people, particularly the chemical attacks.
Al-Badawi emphasized the importance of continually reminding international forums of Assad’s crimes because it serves as a pressure tactic to prevent re-legitimizing and normalizing relations with him and to prevent countries from closing the Syrian file. If the victims’ testimonies and the legal path to hold the regime accountable disappeared, the Syrian file would vanish entirely, allowing al-Assad to solidify his rule for decades.
The road to the International Criminal Court is closed
Some countries and human rights organizations turned to international judicial bodies to hold criminals accountable outside their territories after the UN Security Council repeatedly failed to refer the Syrian case to the International Criminal Court (ICC) due to the Russian-Chinese veto.
The director of Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ), Bassam al-Ahmad, told Enab Baladi that the inability to refer the Syrian file to the ICC is due to two reasons: the Russian-Chinese veto in the Security Council against referring regime officials to the ICC, and Syria not being a member of the Rome Statute.
In 1998, 108 countries signed the Rome Statute of the ICC, while many countries, including Syria and Iraq, did not sign the treaty. Thus, the ICC cannot intervene in cases on Syrian territory, but it can automatically exercise jurisdiction over crimes committed in any member state or committed by persons belonging to a member state.
“Exceptional tribunal is our demand”
With the road to the ICC blocked, Syrian NGOs demanded in November 2023, the establishment of an “exceptional tribunal” to prosecute those who use chemical weapons in Syria, according to a statement by the Association of Victims of Chemical Weapons.
On the 11th anniversary of the Ghouta massacre, the Syria Civil Defence, in collaboration with the “Don’t Suffocate the Truth” campaign, organized a vigil on Tuesday, August 20, at the amphitheater in Idlib City Park to commemorate the victims of the chemical massacre, raising several banners, including “An exceptional tribunal is our demand so that we don’t suffocate twice.”
The demands for an exceptional tribunal to prosecute the regime stemmed from the existence of previous exceptional tribunals, such as those held to prosecute war criminals in Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and also in Lebanon in the case of the assassination of Rafik Hariri.
According to the statement, the proposed exceptional tribunal could address all chemical weapons use cases in Syria and other cases that the ICC is currently prevented from handling due to political deadlock.
Al-Mutassim al-Kilani said that efforts to form an exceptional tribunal to examine the use of chemical weapons in Syria are an important step to pressure European Union prosecutorial offices to present more victims, witnesses, and experts. It also reinforces the emphasis that these crimes do not diminish over time or with changing conditions, thereby necessitating the need to hold the Assad regime accountable for these crimes and not rewarding it by normalizing relations.
Assad conceals chemical weapons
On September 27, 2013, the UN Security Council unanimously voted on Resolution 2118, which includes steps to accelerate the dismantling of the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons program and subject it to stringent verification. The resolution calls for its complete implementation as soon as possible.
The resolution also stipulated that the regime must not use, develop, produce, acquire, stockpile, retain, or transfer chemical weapons directly or indirectly to other states or non-state actors.
Nevertheless, Assad continued to use chemical weapons, conducting 217 chemical attacks across various Syrian provinces from the first documented use of this weapon on December 23, 2012, until April 7, 2024, resulting in the deaths of 1,514 people (including 214 children and 262 women) and injuring 11,080 others, as documented by the Syrian Network for Human Rights.
German envoy to Syria Stefan Schneck confirmed on Wednesday, August 21, that the Syrian regime has not declared or destroyed all its chemical weapons and facilities as per its commitments to the international community.
For its part, the British Foreign Office, during a Security Council session on June 11, accused the Syrian regime of hiding hundreds of tons of chemical materials and failing to meet its commitments to the Security Council to destroy chemical weapons.
The Joint Investigative Mechanism between the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, along with the Investigation and Identification Team of the OPCW, confirmed that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons, including sarin and chlorine, against the Syrian people nine times after joining the Chemical Weapons Convention in 2013, according to the British Foreign Office.
The Syrian regime joined the OPCW in September 2013, less than a month after the Ghouta massacre, under the threat of US military action to overthrow it.