Initial readings of the Syrian government’s pardon decree

Northern Syria – North-Press Agency

As the Syrian authorities have issued a legislative decree granting a
general clemency for committed crimes before September 14th this year, many
questions have been raised about the beneficiaries of the pardon, the position
of political and criminal detainees, even those who were forcibly disappeared,
as well as those who are being tried by the terrorism courts.

The decree consisted of ten main articles, which included a full or
partial clemency for a number of cases, such as criminal cases, misdemeanors
and offenses. It is not the first of its kind in Syria during the recent years
of war.

Initial reading

In a preliminary reading of the pardon decree, which was issued by the
Syrian government on Sunday (September 15, 2019), the prominent Syrian lawyer
Michel Shammas, denounced the decree, the main beneficiaries of it, and the
position of detainees of different cases in Syrian prisons, as well as the
position of those who tried tried in terrorism courts, according to the legal
interpretation of the mentioned decree.

The clemency for “full punishment in the cases of possession,
transfer and abuse of drugs, a quarter of the temporary criminal penalty of
deprivation of liberty in cases of drug trafficking, as well as for
construction offenses and crimes of internal and external military desertions, unless
turning themselves in, and one third of the punishment for juvenile
crimes”, as cases of “Detainees and enforced disappearances in
prisons” was unclear.

There are at least 98,000 people who were forcibly disappeared in Syria
since March 2011, according to a statement issued last August by the Syrian
Network for Human Rights.

According to the analysis of Mr. Shammas, the pardon included only two
articles and one paragraph of an article of the Terrorism Law No. 19 of 2012, regarding
those who are tried in the terrorism courts, by stipulating the pardon for the
full penalty of the conspiracy stipulated in article 2, if it was committed by
a Syrian as well as the pardon of a half of the sentence of paragraph 2 of
Article 7, as the penalty should be temporary hard labor for at least five
years, for committing a terrorist act causing only a sonic explosion.

In addition to the pardon of the full penalty stipulated in Article 10, concerning
information retention (Article stipulates that any Syrian or foreigner residing
in Syria who knows one of the felonies stipulated in this law and does not
inform the authorities about it should be punished by imprisonment for one to
three years). So the pardon “includes only a very limited number of those
who are being tried by terrorism courts”, Shamas said.

He explained that: “Anyone who asks whether the decree should
include those convicted or tried in military field courts or the detainees
inside security branches and other centers of detention still without trial, we
do not know how Assad will apply the pardon decree on them”.

Clemency

With regard to articles stipulated in the pardon, related to writing a
post or express opinions other than those of the public authorities, or criticizing
it, the pardon included article 285; (whoever in Syria arose claims aimed at
weakening national sentiment or advocating racial or sectarian strife during the
wartime or when it is expected, is penalized by temporary arrest).  Article 286 (should be entitled to the same
penalty for transferring news known to be false or exaggerated that would
weaken the nation’s psychology, in Syria in the same circumstances,  and if the perpetrator counts such reports as
true, he should be punished by imprisonment for at least three months). Article
293 stipulates that (any act committed with the intent to provoke armed
insurrection against the authorities is punishable by temporary detention under
the Constitution).

In addition, article 295 (conspiracy aiming at committing one of the
above-mentioned offenses should be punished by criminal house arrest), and
article 303 (should be punished by temporary hard labor for conspiracy with the
intent to commit one of the offenses mentioned in articles 289-302), and article
305 (conspiracy intended to commit an act or acts of terrorism should be
punished by hard labor from ten to twenty years), and article 306 (each
association established with the intent to change the economic or social entity
of the country or the basic conditions of society by one of the means mentioned
in article 304 should be dissolved and eliminated, with temporary hard labor).

Three objectives

In private statement to North-Press by a phone call, Judge-Counsellor
Khaled Shihab-alDin of the Syrian Lawyers’ Committee stated that the Syrian
government aims to three main objectives by this decree, of which the first is
related to the date of the issuance of such a decree, which is a day prior to
holding a tripartite summit in Ankara (Russia, Turkey and Iran), that the
decree would come as  “a representative
act which Russia and Iran would use at that meeting”.

The second objective, according to Shihab-alDin, is related to attempts
to “undermine the detainees’ file”, he said, by trying to consider all
those detainees in the prisons of the Syrian government are detained in
accordance with the laws in force, pointing out that “the decree will
never include those who are forcibly disappeared, who are numbered in
thousands”.

While the third objective is linked to the attempt to encourage refugees
to return, by suggesting the creation of a safe environment for their return, as
providing clemency for internal and external desertions for the return of young
people, as well as the provision of clemency for the cases of the decrees 19
and 20 which are related to the law of terrorism.