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Explained: How Syrian Courts Differ in Property Confiscation Procedures People Accused of Terrorism

30-08-2022/in Analysis & Features, HLP /by admin

The procedures and rulings for terrorism cases differ between Syria’s criminal courts and the Antiterrorism Court with regard to seizing and disposing of accused persons’ assets and real estate. The two courts also are granted different powers and provide various safeguards in trials. 

The Ordinary Judiciary, to which the criminal courts belong, has the original jurisdiction to consider all instances and cases of a criminal character, which includes terrorism cases. Syrian authorities have a broad interpretation of terrorism and apply the charge to many of its political opponents, including civilians. Articles 304 to 306 of Penal Code No. 148 of 1949 include terrorism cases within the list of crimes against the state’s internal security. 

However, since the Baath Party came to power in 1963, the criminal courts have gradually lost their jurisdiction over such cases in favour of exceptional courts (e.g. state security courts) that do not respect due process or certain legal safeguards. This process culminated in 2012 with the passage of Law No. 22, which established the Antiterrorism Court. This new court is tasked with implementing Antiterrorism Law No. 19 of 2012, which repealed Articles 304 to 306 of the Penal Code. 

The powers of the two courts

The powers of the Antiterrorism Court are considered absolute in every stage of a trial, without accounting for due process or guaranteeing the defendant’s rights. Article 7 of Law No. 22 of 2012 exempts the Antiterrorism Court from adhering to the procedures outlined in Criminal Procedure Law No. 112 of 1950. 

The Antiterrorism Court’s powers extend to hearing all terrorism cases considered by other courts. Article 8 of Law No. 22 of 2012 states explicitly: “Terrorism cases being considered before all other courts in their current state shall be transferred to the newly established court.” This measure gives priority to the Antiterrorism Court in hearing terrorism crimes cases. 

At the same time, criminal courts may hear some terrorism cases, albeit on an exceptional basis, to ease the Antiterrorism Court’s workload. Unlike the Antiterrorism Court, the criminal courts are bound to implement the judicial procedures stipulated in Criminal Procedure Law No. 112 of 1950. 

Judgments in absentia and retrials

In cases where the accused person turns themself in or is arrested, judgments made in absentia in ordinary criminal courts may be cancelled and a retrial held. This principle applies to all criminal cases with judgments made in absentia, including terrorism cases. 

However, the Antiterrorism Court is not required to retry a person who has been judged in absentia unless they voluntarily surrender themself to the court. 

Disposing of accused persons’ properties 

The two courts also differ in handling the assets and real estate belonging to persons accused of terrorism. The Antiterrorism Court’s authority is absolute in such cases, starting with the decision by the public prosecutor to seize all the defendant’s movable and immovable assets (even those unrelated to the crime), whether they were tried following an arrest or tried in absentia. 

When the Antiterrorism Court issues a ruling against a defendant (whether they were present in the court or the verdict was made in absentia), all of their movable and immovable assets are permanently confiscated. The assets then go to the state treasury, according to the confiscation procedures followed by the Ministry of Finance. 

However, ordinary criminal courts do not issue asset seizures for those tried in absentia for terrorism until the defendant has been given a 10-day notice to appear before the court. If they fail to appear, the court orders a seizure of their properties through the public prosecutor, who sends a letter to the Directorate of Cadastral Affairs to place a precautionary seizure notice on their real estate records. The prosecutor also sends a letter to the State Properties Department to prepare for the trial in absentia. 

When a criminal court issues a verdict in absentia against a defendant, their properties are placed at the state’s disposal. However, the state’s role is limited to managing these assets according to the relevant procedures. The court appoints a trustee to undertake this task, meaning that the assets do not belong to the state treasury. The state may return these assets to the convicted person in cases where the in absentia statute of limitations has been reached or if they are announced innocent after surrendering themselves or facing arrest and retrial. Here, the state trustee must present to the defendant a report on the administration of the seized properties. 

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Explained: How Kurds in Hassakeh Gained Citizenship but not HLP Rights

30-08-2022/in HLP, News /by admin

Despite having gained citizenship in 2011, many Syrian Kurds formerly stripped of their nationality still struggle to reclaim their properties. In addition, the restoration of their citizenship statuses was not accompanied by any measures to compensate them for their lost housing, land and property rights. 

In 1962, the Syrian government of then President Nazim Al-Kudsi issued Decree No. 93 to conduct an exceptional census in the Hassakeh governorate. However, the census was conducted for just one day, giving residents no time to submit documents proving they had resided in Syria since at least 1945. Based on a proposal from the Minister of Interior, a decree was issued to form a committee to study the census results. The committee wrote up instructions for implementation for local administrative authorities and civil registration offices. In total, thousands of Kurds were stripped of their Syrian citizenship because of the census, an adaptation of the Syrian authorities’ discriminatory Arab nationalist policies against the Kurds during that time. 

According to a 2018 study published in Suwar Magazine, Kurdish residents who were rendered stateless as a result of that census belonged to two main categories. The first category included those who became known as the so-called ‘foreigners of Hassakeh,’ to whom the Syrian authorities gave special civil registration certificates called “red cards.” The second category comprised maktoumin al-qid, or “non-registered” residents, who had Syrian citizen mothers and fathers considered foreigners of Hassakeh. Members of this second category were only granted an identification certificate issued by local mokhtars, or low-level government representatives. 

In addition to their citizenship, their housing, land, and property rights were affected. Stateless Kurds were compelled to register their properties in the names of their relatives or acquaintances who did have citizenship to protect their properties, as Law No. 189 of 1952 banned granting many real estate rights in Syria to any non-Syrian individual. This measure caused numerous legal problems, especially property disputes between the heirs of original property rights holders and those who now held the properties in their own names. 

Moreover, the delimitation and census work in Hassakeh after the 1962 census disregarded the rights of the stateless land owners, with those lands now registered as state property. The system of delimitation and census, outlined in Decree No. 186 of 1926, is meant to survey areas that have not yet been entered into the Land Registry. This process aims to start a Land Record for these lands, number the lands, and register them under the names of their owners in the Cadastral Affairs. In other words, stateless land owners whose lands were not registered yet in the Land Registry lost them to the state without compensation.

The stateless Kurdish residents were also retroactively deprived of their rights of usufruct for agricultural lands that had been distributed to farmers under Agrarian Reform Law No. 161 (issued during the period of Syrian-Egyptian unification from 1958 to 1961). As a result, they lost the right to own this land in the future, while other beneficiaries of the farmlands were able to. 

Discriminatory policies against Kurds continued for the next five decades under Baath Party rule. Only a few months after the outbreak of the Syrian uprising in 2011, the Syrian President issued Decree No. 49, which granted citizenship to those registered as “foreigners of Hassakeh.” However, the decree had a clear political dimension as an attempt to appease the Kurds and draw them away from the revolutionary movement. 

Syrians for Truth and Justice, a research organisation, reported that until the beginning of 2011, there were 346,242 “foreigners of Hassakeh” officially registered by the Syrian government. Most of them received Syrian citizenship after Decree No. 49 in 2011. However, Decree No. 49 did not explicitly include the maktoumin, who numbered 171,300 in 2011. Of them, 50,400 obtained Syrian citizenship after changing their legal statuses from maktoumin to foreigners of Hassakeh. 

After gaining citizenship, many Kurdish citizens and their heirs could recover their properties from those who possessed them through mutual consent. However, the largest proportion of those Kurds was unable to regain their rights. However, one of the main issues with Decree No. 49 was that it did not stipulate compensating Kurdish citizens for the moral and material injustices they had faced over the five decades since 1962. The decree did not refer in any form to the housing, land and property violations that had taken place. 

https://syria-report.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Logo-20-2.png 0 0 admin https://syria-report.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Logo-20-2.png admin2022-08-30 11:53:462022-08-30 11:53:46Explained: How Kurds in Hassakeh Gained Citizenship but not HLP Rights

Real Estate Appraisal Committee Finishes Work at Northern Entrance to Damascus

30-08-2022/in HLP, News /by admin

On August 11, 2022, the Damascus governorate announced that its real estate appraisal committee had completed work at the northern entrance of Damascus. 

Appraisal committees appraise real estate properties of a to-be-zoned area based on the value of these properties before the issuance of the zoning decree.

Decree No. 237 of 2021 stipulated the creation of a zoned real estate area at the capital city’s northern entrance. The governorate would develop the project in accordance with Law No. 10 of 2018, which allowed for the creation of one or more such areas within the General Zoning Plan of an administrative unit. Decree No. 237 was based on Detailed Zoning Plan No. 104 for the Qaboun Industrial Zone, which was issued and approved in June 2019. This zoned real estate area takes up 200 hectares of land that mainly include the industrial area, in addition to a 50-hectare section carved out of the neighbouring city of Harasta, which had been a part of the Rural Damascus governorate. 

Law No. 10 of 2018 and Decree No. 66 of 2012 stipulated the creation of several specialised committees that would carry out different tasks after establishing zoned real estate areas. Among those committees is the real estate appraisal committees, which must appraise the real estate of the area according to its current state – that is, the state the properties were in before the issuance of the zoning decree. The committee’s appraisal includes any buildings, facilities, trees or crops. The appraisal occurs in a “just” manner that “takes real values into account” to later compensate the owners with shares inside the zoned real estate area. 

The Real Estate Appraisal Committee for the Northern Entrance to Damascus zone was formed in March 2022, by the decision of the Damascus governor. Per Decree No. 66 and Law No. 10, the body has five members, headed by a judge with the rank of a counsellor, appointed by the Minister of Justice. The other four members include two real estate experts appointed by the Minister of Public Works and Housing and two experts to serve as representatives of real estate owners in the zone who those owners elected.  

Under Decree No. 66 and Law No. 10, the committee takes the following factors into account during the appraisal process: location of the land and any buildings on it, as well as facilities and connection to surrounding buildings; availability of public utilities; adherence to construction codes; the type of trees and crops (if farmland), as well as location, nature, classification, products and proximity to roads, public utilities and the city centre, and finally the sources of irrigation. 

After it finished appraising properties in the Northern Entrance to Damascus zone, the committee called upon real estate owners to review its appraisal of their properties. 

Decree No. 66 and Law No. 10 dictate that the table must include the committee’s appraisal of the land, buildings, trees, crops and other facilities, each with its data field. In reality, however, the table included the following fields: real estate number, real estate zone, plot number, storey, surface area, value per square metre of floor space, land value, and the total adjusted value of the buildings and land, accounting for various weight criteria. The committee did not clarify what these criteria were.  

According to the head of the Committee of Qaboun Industrialists, the value per square metre of basement floor space was appraised at SYP 1.5 million; the first-storey floor space at SYP 4 million; and second-storey floor space at SYP 2.5 million. 

The committee’s decisions may be appealed before the governorate’s Civil Court of Appeals, though the subsequent ruling is considered final. According to Article 14 of Law No. 10, the Civil Court of Appeals must decide on such cases within 30 days. Appeals do not halt the zoning implementation process. 

Article 13 of Law No. 10 states that when the Real Estate Appraisal Committee completes its task, then the Distribution Committee estimates the values of the area’s zoning plots. It then compares the total value of all the real estate properties there, as reported by the appraisal committee, with the total value of the zoning plots. Afterwards, equity shares are distributed to the rights holders. 

https://syria-report.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Logo-20-2.png 0 0 admin https://syria-report.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Logo-20-2.png admin2022-08-30 11:51:282022-08-30 11:51:28Real Estate Appraisal Committee Finishes Work at Northern Entrance to Damascus

Conditional Housing for Women Violates Housing, Land, and Property Rights

30-08-2022/in HLP, News /by admin

Many women in Syria suffer from restrictions on their housing, land, and property rights, often through unwritten conditions. Women are frequently granted real estate properties in return for meeting certain social conditions, which, if breached, cause them to lose their rights. 

Yasmeen is from the town of Kafr Batna in the Rural Damascus governorate and got married when she was 13 years old. Her father imposed a condition on her husband-to-be, Bassam, that she obtain an apartment guaranteeing her right to housing. Bassam documented ownership of a 100-square-metre apartment in a family building through a pro forma sales contract that he registered with the notary. However, that sale was never officially recorded in the Land Registry. 

In 2012, as opposition forces took control of East Ghouta and as regime forces unleashed heavy airstrikes and artillery fire on the area, Yasmeen and her husband agreed that he would stay home while she moved with the children to Jaramana, which was under regime control. At the time, the couple had a daughter and a son who suffered from medical problems and required intensive care. 

Yasmeen moved with the children to Jaramana, where she lived in a rental home paid for by Bassam. Meanwhile, she learned basket weaving and recycling household goods, eventually finding work in these fields and in housecleaning. With time, the couple’s physical separation led to the decline of their relationship. Four years after Yasmeen had moved, Bassam stopped sending money. She alone would be in charge of paying the rent, daily living expenses, and the medical costs for her son. During this time she also acquired middle and secondary school certificates, which she was not able to obtain as a child bride. 

When regime forces recaptured East Ghouta in 2018, Yasmeen and Bassam were unable to restore their relationship. She brought up the idea of divorce, as well as her right to sell the apartment she ostensibly owned, which would help her establish her own work project. Bassam refused, telling her that her right to the apartment was conditional on her remaining his wife. Yasmeen nevertheless went through with the divorce and tried contacting an influential resident in the area to help her sell the apartment. However, the pro forma sales contract that had been made with the notary remained in Bassam’s possession, while he affirmed his ownership of the apartment. 

Family mediators failed to solve the dispute, and Yasmeen refused any solution that would involve her returning to her husband or being deprived of her right to the apartment. In the end, she preferred to get divorced and lose her right to the property. 

On the other hand, Najwa is an unmarried teacher in her 40s from the Lattakia governorate countryside with many brothers. Najwa’s father owns a three-storey building and distributed the apartments in it to his sons while giving her nothing. In the meantime, Najwa has been living in a semi-detached studio in an apartment registered under the name of one of her brothers who lives with his family in a separate home. The situation remained acceptable until Najwa’s mother died and she inherited a 300-square-metre plot of land. However, Najwa’s brother took hold of the land, reasoning that allowing Najwa to live in his apartment meant he had the right to take her share without paying her for it. This became the condition for Najwa’s housing. She would have to give up her share of the land she had inherited in exchange for remaining in the studio, albeit without being able to formally register her right of usufruct for the lodging. 

When Najwa refused the arrangement, she was physically beaten more than once. The last time, her brother evicted her from the studio and removed her belongings. Najwa fled the coastal region and moved to another city, still refusing to give up her share of the inheritance despite having lost the right to live in her brother’s studio. 

https://syria-report.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Logo-20-2.png 0 0 admin https://syria-report.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Logo-20-2.png admin2022-08-30 11:11:442022-08-30 11:11:44Conditional Housing for Women Violates Housing, Land, and Property Rights

Explained: Property Extortion in Hassakeh

09-08-2022/in Analysis & Features, HLP /by admin

Property extortion cases are today one of the most common housing, land and property violations in areas controlled by the majority-Kurdish Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria (AANES) and constitute the most significant share of cases in local courts.

Property extortion is the seizure of other people’s properties without their consent or the seizure of others’ properties without a legal title deed or legitimate reason to do so. Under Syrian law, extortion does not necessarily mean that coercion has taken place. Rather, only the seizure of another’s property without any legal justification needs to have occurred for the act to be considered extortion.

A The Syria Report correspondent in northeastern Syria met with a Syrian man called Osso, who in 2021 bought an apartment through a legal agent from a woman who has lived abroad for the past two decades. The sale was legally registered by a court within the Syrian judicial system and documented within the Land Registry. However, Osso later discovered that the expatriate woman’s ex-husband had claimed ownership of the apartment and began leasing it to tenants.

Osso said he turned to the People’s Court, which is under AANES authority, and filed a claim to recover possession of his apparently extorted apartment. In Syrian law, lawsuits for recovery of possession are civil suits and fall within the jurisdiction of urgent matters judges. Such judges may, on an urgent basis, restore possession of properties to claimants if they meet certain legal conditions for possession. In Osso’s case, the court ordered a precautionary seizure of the apartment pending a decision it would later issue in mid-2022 that handed the property back over to Osso, emptied of occupants.

Some property extortion victims in Hassakeh have preferred to file property extortion claims before the People’s Courts. This is because such cases are considered criminal cases related to the public right, in which the public prosecution arrests the accused and investigates them as soon as the case is filed. Here, the AANES’ Asayish security forces play the role of the judicial police – if someone files a case of property extortion against another person before the People’s Courts, then the Asayish arrest the accused party and question them. Then, if the Asayish are able to confirm that the accused party does not have the proper documents proving their ownership of the disputed property, the tenants are forced to evacuate the property and hand it over to the rightful owner.

This process has opened the door to many malicious property extortion lawsuits before the People’s Courts in Hassakeh, such as claimants filing suits against others for extortion when, in fact, the case involves a lesser dispute like property transgression, eviction from a rental property or refusal of a sales contract. One Hassakeh resident told The Syria Report that he was able to recover his property from a seller who had reneged on the sales contract by simply filing a property extortion lawsuit. The prosecution then summoned the seller for questioning. This prompted the seller to voluntarily undo the renege on the sale and request that the problem is resolved by mutual consent with the buyer, outside the court’s scope.

However, cases are often not settled so easily and quickly, as many are further complicated by the continued presence of the Syrian judicial system courts in northeastern Syria alongside those operating under the AANES. Any opposing parties in a given case may resort to one of these courts or even both at the same time.

Yousef, one resident, said he filed a property extortion lawsuit in mid-2022 in the city of Qamishli before a criminal court affiliated with the Syrian’s judicial system. Days later, he filed a similar suit before the AANES’ People’s Court, believing this would further protect his ownership of the property and ensure its recovery. However, the People’s Court turned down the case based on Circular No. 5, which was issued in May 2015 by the Judicial Council in the Jazira Region affiliated with the AANES. The circular stipulates that any lawsuit filed before the AANES courts be rejected if another judicial authority has already considered the case. Yousef was then forced to wait for a decision from the Syrian court to recover his extorted property.

In 2021, the Social Justice Council for North and Eastern Syria, the AANES’ judicial authority, issued Decision No. 6, which barred the body’s courts from considering cases of original right for Amiri lands and properties located in areas outside cities and towns that do not have zoning plans. In cases of original right, a court may consider which party has ownership of the disputed property – that is, who is entitled to ownership. However, the AANES courts may not consider such cases for real estate because they do not have their own Land Registry. People living in AANES-held areas still must rely on the Syrian judicial system courts and Land Registry records in order to prove their property ownership.

At the same time, there is a mismatch of jurisdiction between the two coexisting judicial systems. One extortion victim, Zinar, told The Syria Report that he had purchased a common property and obtained a decision from a Syrian judicial system court of First Instance confirming his ownership of it. However, Zinar later discovered that someone else had bought that same property and obtained a similar court decision. Zinar filed a lawsuit before a Syrian court claiming that the other buyer had used forged documents, in addition to filing a lawsuit before an AANES court claiming property extortion on the part of the second buyer. The AANES court decided to place a precautionary seizure on the property and preserve the file pending a decision from the Syrian court on Zinar’s forgery lawsuit.

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Explained: What Happens to the Properties of People Accused of Crimes in Absentia?

09-08-2022/in Analysis & Features, HLP /by admin

Syria’s Criminal Court may sentence accused persons and issue judgments to seize their properties in absentia, placing those properties under the control of administrative authorities.

The Criminal Court handles cases with a criminal nature, in which the penalty for convicted persons is over three years. The court must apply the principles of Criminal Procedure Law No. 112 of 1950.

Conviction in absentia

Within eight days of the Criminal Court issuing a judgment in absentia against someone accused of a felony, a summary of that judgment is published in the Official Gazette. The decision must also be published in one of the state newspapers and on the door of the convicted person’s residence.

This judgment in absentia will be considered adequate starting the day following its publication in the Official Gazette under Article 330 of Criminal Procedure Law No. 112 of 1950. And according to Law No. 112, such publication is only for judgments issued in absentia.

An in-absentia judgment may be issued against a convict who has “escaped justice”–this means any accused person for whom an investigating or referral judge has issued an indictment before transferring the case to the criminal court but who refused to appear before the criminal court within the deadline granted to them.

Under Law No. 112 of 1950, the accused person is granted ten days to appear before the court, starting from the date they were notified of their indictment by the investigating judge. If they do not appear, the Criminal Court may decide to grant an additional 10 days, after which they are considered a fugitive if they still do not attend. At this point, the accused is stripped of their civil rights and their assets are left the disposal of the government and administrative authorities.

Any act of disposal that the fugitive may at this point take with their real estate properties or other assets is considered null. Meanwhile, the Public Prosecutor now informs the head of the Land Registry to place a precautionary seizure on the convicted person’s properties, afterwards notifying the Department of State Properties within the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform of the move. All this is done to pressure the convicted person to hand themself in.

‘Terrorism’ cases

It is worth noting that, from time to time, the Official Gazette publishes criminal judgments made in absentia by ordinary criminal courts against people convicted in “terrorism” cases. Those accused of terrorism are not only tried before the Antiterrorism Court, which was established under Law No. 22 of 2012, but also before the ordinary criminal courts. There are no clear criteria for distinguishing between the cases that may be raised in one court versus another. However, it appears that some such cases go to the criminal courts in order to relieve pressure on the Antiterrorism Court.

A judgment issued in absentia by the Criminal Court for terrorism cases also includes placing the convicted person’s assets under state administration. This is done according to certain procedures laid out for managing the assets of convicts after appointing a trustee.

Managing the assets of someone convicted in absentia

The spouse, minor children and parents of a convict in absentia, may receive monthly stipends from the proceeds of the convict’s seized assets. The Civil Court determines the size of these stipends. A personal claimant may also obtain a decision issued by that same court to receive temporary compensation.

When managing the assets of someone convicted in absentia, the state follows Personal Status Law No. 59 of 1953, delegating management of the funds to a trustee appointed by a judge from the Sharia Court. All actions taken by this trustee are considered valid so long as they follow the rules for trusteeship detailed in Law No. 59. Under this law, the trustee may not dispose of a convict’s assets through buying, selling or other acts of disposal.

Relinquishing convictions in absentia

If a judgment in absentia is relinquished by the statute of limitations or if the accused person is declared innocent after their arrest, a retrial or handing them over, their assets are returned to them. The trustee must then provide them with an account of all administrative actions that have been taken regarding those assets. This means that a Criminal Court’s seizure of the assets belonging to a person convicted in absentia of “terrorism” constitutes a temporary measure and does not entitle the court to dispose of those assets and other properties. This measure differs from freezing or confiscating an accused person’s assets, according to procedures followed by the Antiterrorism Court.

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Raqqa: SDF Seizes Social Housing Communities and Displaced People’s Properties

09-08-2022/in HLP, News /by admin

After it took control of Raqqa in 2017, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) seized residential areas and private real estate properties. Most of these properties belonged to residents who had been displaced to regime-held territory. These sites were converted into military and security offices and housing for the families of some SDF members and leaders.

According to The Syria Report correspondent, SDF security and military forces seized around 400 properties, most owned by people displaced from Raqqa and now living in regime areas. Most of those displaced people had left the city when opposition forces seized control of Raqqa in 2013, while others left when the Islamic State came to power in 2014. The SDF justified its seizure of these properties by claiming that the owners were regime collaborators. However, in most cases, the properties are owned by employees of Syrian state institutions such as the Electricity and Water Establishment or by members of professional syndicates like the Bar Association.

The SDF has so far failed to return these homes to their owners for several reasons, according to a senior official in Raqqa who requested anonymity as he was not authorised to speak with the media. First, the owners of these properties, or their close family members, are seen as affiliated with parties that are hostile to the SDF. Second, the official said some of the property owners had financed or spread rumours against the SDF, its members or Kurds in general. He added that the decision to seize those properties could be discussed with local leaders in the Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria (AANES) or the SDF, as the matter belongs to specific “cadres.” According to a local correspondent for The Syria Report, cadres include advisors provided to Democratic Union Party (PYD) leadership from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) ranks.

Among the seized properties are entire housing communities, which the SDF has said belong to Syrian state institutions rather than to individuals. However, contrary to those claims, these communities are projects implemented as part of social or cooperative housing programmes, in which applicants are allocated homes after paying for them in instalments.

For example, the SDF seized the 160-apartment Youth Housing complex in the northeast part of Raqqa city. Work to finish constructing the complex halted in 2011. There are completed apartments that owners received and moved into, while other apartments remained uncompleted. The recipients of these homes are young, low-income employees in the public sector institutions or ministries. However, most residents of the youth housing complex were displaced during the war to regime-held areas, where they kept working with the same institutions. The SDF expelled remaining residents from the complex by force, afterwards converting part of the complex for military use and another part into housing for SDF members and their families.

The SDF also took over the Police Housing complex, among the social housing programmes completed and inhabited before 2011. Because some residents of the complex were still employed as police officers when opposition forces seized Raqqa, they and their families fled to regime areas. The SDF forced other residents who had already retired from their apartments. The homes are currently inhabited by family members of SDF members from outside Raqqa.

The SDF also seized homes from the Euphrates Basin housing complex in the city’s Al-Deraiyeh neighbourhood, in the western part of Raqqa. The 80 apartments in the complex were built in the 1980s to house employees of the Ministry of Irrigation’s Euphrates Basin Establishment. The SDF now uses the apartments to house the families of its North Brigade.

According to a human rights source from the Justice Authority, which is part of the AANES judicial system, owners of the seized homes have filed around 350 lawsuits in the hopes of recovering their properties. These cases were referred to the AANES Office of Military Relations, a military body responsible for some civilian cases, such as civilian arrests and detention centres. It is unclear why the seized property lawsuits were referred to this body, as it is not part of the judiciary and is known for top-down control over its decisions by the PKK’s caders. In any case, the Office of Military Relations issued verbal accusations against the complainants before the court, saying they had collaborated and communicated with anti-SDF parties. These accusations temporarily halted the cases.

However, the problem doesn’t stop at residents of the social housing complexes. Owners of large houses have complained of the SDF converting their homes into officers’ housing or security and military headquarters. One such homeowner, whose accommodate in a higher-income part of Raqqa had been seized and now houses an SDF commander, told The Syria Report that the court referred his case to the Office of Military Relations. He was accused of collaborating with Turkish-backed Syrian rebel forces when he visited the office.

Abu Riyad owns a large house that overlooks the main street in Raqqa. He described himself to The Syria Report as a politically neutral and has never been affiliated with any political party. Abu Riyad and his family fled the city when IS took control, seeking safety in the regime-held territory. After IS’ defeat and withdrawal from Raqqa in 2017, the SDF seized Abu Riyad’s house and converted it into a security office. He attempted to take back the house through legal means, but to no avail. Through a connection, he recovered his home by paying several thousand dollars to an influential figure; the payment was officially registered as a donation to AANES.

However, not everyone seeking to recover their seized homes can pay those sums. Meanwhile, the SDF’s continued control of these properties prevents their displaced owners from returning. Some displaced residents who return end up paying rent to live in other parts of the city close to their seized homes.

One lawyer has been defending property rights for residents in Raqqa told The Syria Report that the SDF’s seizure of civilian properties through threats has no basis in any law. He stressed the necessity of forming a special committee to discuss the seized properties issue. However, the lawyer also pointed out that the issue has been raised through mediators and activists with top AANES officials in Raqqa on more than one previous occasion, to no avail.

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Early Recovery Projects in Al-Hajar Al-Aswad

09-08-2022/in HLP, News /by admin

Despite various difficult-to-meet conditions they force on IDPs who wish to return to the city of Al-Hajar Al-Aswad in Rural Damascus, Syrian authorities have pinned the low numbers of returnees so far solely on the wartime destruction of local infrastructure, including water, sewage and electricity networks. Schools and residential areas also faced damage on a wide scale. Authorities there are now seeking funding from international organisations for projects within the category of early recovery (ER) in Al-Hajar Al-Aswad to rehabilitate schools and infrastructure and remove rubble.

Al-Hajar Al-Aswad is the administrative centre of a district of the Rural Damascus governorate and is located next to southern Damascus’ Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp. About half a million people lived in Al-Hajar Al-Aswad before 2011, with the city known to have the largest concentration of displaced Syrians from the occupied Golan Heights ever since the 1967 war. For this reason, there is an administrative overlap between Quneitra governorate and Rural Damascus governorate in Al-Hajar Al-Aswad. Still, much of the city contains informal, un-zoned housing neighbourhoods without proper public services. These neighbourhoods have served as a destination for low-income Syrians from other governorates who want to move to the capital.

Regime forces wrought massive destruction on the city during the period of opposition control over the area from 2012 to 2015 and during Islamic State control from 2015 to 2018. The regime regained control of Al-Hajar Al-Aswad in 2018 after waging a large-scale aerial and artillery bombardment campaign that destroyed entire neighbourhoods and forcibly displaced all remaining residents.

Last May, former governor of Rural Damascus said in a radio interview that the governorate must rehabilitate Al-Hajar Al-Aswad’s infrastructure before allowing displaced residents to return. He added that the governorate had so far coordinated with non-governmental organisations and rehabilitated 80 percent of the infrastructure in the Tishreen and Al-Thawra neighbourhoods. He added that the needs required for returnees to stay would be secured despite the governorate’s inability to completely rehabilitate the two neighbourhoods at this time. Tishreen and Al-Thawra are the only two neighbourhoods to which displaced residents have been allowed to return in Al-Hajar Al-Aswad, while the other neighbourhoods remain destroyed. These two neighbourhoods were the least destroyed by city military operations, making rehabilitating them simpler.

The head of the Al-Hajar Al-Aswad city council said in another radio interview in July that the council is doing what it can to repair the city but does not have the proper machinery to remove the remaining rubble or tanks to secure water. He added that the Rural Damascus governorate sent some machinery for only 15 days last May after the governor’s visit and that workers were only able to remove some of the rubble during that time. According to the city council head, 2,100 families have applied to return home, of which 730 have been approved. The council has also granted 190 home restoration permits, though in reality, only 90 families have returned to live permanently in Al-Hajar Al-Aswad.

The Rural Damascus governorate requires displaced residents to meet certain conditions before being permitted to return to Al-Hajar Al-Aswad’s Tishreen and Al-Thawra neighbourhoods. They must fill out a form and then attach documents proving their ownership of the property to which they wish to return, in addition to a family ledger and copies of their and their family members’ ID cards. The security services then review their file and either grant or reject approval to return. If they are approved, a technical committee from the municipality then inspects the building and assesses any damages. If it is found to be safely habitable, the property owner must apply for a restoration permit from the municipality. After all that, final approval is given for them to return.

The city council head told the semi-official newspaper Al-Watan in July that the council had signed an agreement with Première Urgence Internationale (PUI) to fund the rehabilitation of a primary school in the Al-Thawra neighbourhood. And in late July the Rural Damascus governorate began rehabilitating the school, with work expected to be complete within two months, according to the contract with PUI. The council head said that UNICEF is also set to equip another school, but did not specify which one. Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), a relief organisation, has pledged to equip and rehabilitate the rest of the governorate’s schools in Al-Hajar Al-Aswad.

However, the city council head did not mention the condition of schools run by the Quneitra governorate in Al-Hajar Al-Aswad.

So far, returnees to the city have relied on solar energy, generators and batteries to obtain electricity, as the Rural Damascus Electricity Company has yet to install transformers due to logistical issues, according to official statements. The former governor of Rural Damascus gave a five-day deadline in late April for the company to install the transformers, which it failed to meet.

ADRA is also planning to install solar energy systems to run two water wells that the Rural Damascus Water Establishment previously dug. After the pumps are running again, they will likely be used to fill tanks to supply residents with water. The water and sewage networks remain damaged in all neighbourhoods of the city, including those once again inhabited.

The city council head added that the council had coordinated with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to maintain and replace the sewage line that passes through Al-Hajar Al-Aswad from the adjacent Al-Qadam neighbourhood to the Yarmouk camp sewage treatment plant. This line faced damage during fighting in the area and the regime’s siege of southern Damascus during opposition control. The ICRC also recently helped repair and restore sections of the same sewage line within the Yarmouk camp.

Finally, ADRA has also pledged to remove the remaining rubble, according to the city council head. The Syria Report could not confirm the locations of the rubble to be removed, the method of removal or which law would serve as the legal basis for the removal.

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The Planning and Urbanisation Law Along Tartous’ Waterfront

02-08-2022/in HLP, News /by admin

In response to amendments requested by the Ministry of Public Works and Housing to a waterfront zoning study, the Tartous City Council has adopted new proposals that may lead to resolve the five-decade-old problem. Also, the new proposals may lead to implementing Law No. 23 of 2015, which concerns the implementation of zoning and urbanisation, within a small area along the waterfront.

The Tartous waterfront, which is 1,400 metres long and 30-130 metres wide, is currently occupied by worn-down homes and shops whose owners have since 1976 been barred from obtaining construction or renovation permits for their properties. In 1988, the city issued a new zoning plan with a 2,000 square-metres minimum surface area allotted for construction plots along the waterfront. However, that waterfront area contains many small real estate properties. An amended zoning plan issued for the city of Tartous in 2006 divides the waterfront into 27 zoning plots, each with a minimum total surface area of 900 square-metres. So far construction permits have been granted for five of the plots in accordance with the 2006 zoning plan, but construction yet to begin.

The Tartous City Council contracted Lattakia’s Tishreen University in 2018 to perform a new zoning study for the waterfront. The university released its study in 2019, increasing the number of seaside zoning plots to 80 and amending the minimum surface area per plot to 250 square-metres. Up to five real estate properties would be allowed within each plot, each of which has dozens of owners, occupants, heirs, and tenants. Indeed, as the number of zoning plots increases, so too does the “real estate entanglement” between rights holders, according to the official terminology of the problem.

The council approved the study  in October 2019 in its Decision No. 102. In December of that year, it referred the study to its Regional Technical Committee and then to the Ministry of Public Works and Housing.

However, the ministry issued Letter No. 2557/S in March 2022 rejecting the Tishreen University zoning study and insisting that the number of zoning plots stick to the original plan’s 27. The ministry gave the Tartous City Council three options: Partially amending the Tishreen University study to adhere to the ministry’s comments, announcing a competition to submit a new waterfront zoning study, or forming a larger technical committee to include zoning experts who could reach alternative solutions.

The council chose the third option. In June 2022, it formed a special expanded committee comprised of technicians and experts to study the waterfront. They were tasked with proposing zoning and planning solutions for the area and presenting them to the city council. In the end, the committee proposed two phases for solving the issue:

The first phase would be a planning phase, which would include a study to divide the waterfront into 45 zoning plots allocated for construction. The plots would range from 800 to 1,200 square-metres each. This idea would serve as a compromise between the 27 plots desired by the Ministry of Public Works and Housing and the Tishreen University study’s 80 zoning plots.

The second phase would involve zoning. It would address a problem related to the 2006 zoning plan, which featured constructing a public street in the waterfront area that would impede on the properties of some rights holders. The city council had previously granted construction permits for five zoning plots on both sides of the planned street. To solve the problem, the committee suggested creating a zoning area in the location allocated for the street, in accordance with the provisions of Law No. 23 of 2015.

It is worth noting the Tartous City Council head’s response to a council member who objected to applying Law No. 23 along the seafront. He maintained that the options available to address the area range from expropriation to application of a law related to zoning, such as Law No. 23. The council head added that the solution to the waterfront street issue would stem from applying section two of Law No. 23, as the project would “achieve justice and appropriate compensation for the real estate owners, preserve city property, and solve the problem from its roots.”

Section two of the law focuses on zoning and may be applied in a number of cases, including in areas like the Tartous waterfront where the local authorities wish to implement detailed and general zoning plans. Meanwhile, section one of the law provides administrative units with other options that they may implement to areas containing informal housings. For example, administrative units may apply the provisions of either Real Estate Development and Investment Law No. 15 of 2008 (and its amendments) or the Expropriation Law.

The Tartous City Council head’s words about “justice and appropriate compensation for the real estate owners” appear inaccurate if the council apply section two of Law No. 23. The law allows administrative units to deduct land free of charge and without compensation from areas containing informal housing in order to implement any roads, plazas, parks, parking lots, public facilities, public housing units, and private service stations laid out within the approved general and detailed zoning plans.

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Explained: How Syria’s Religious Sects Differ Over Inheritance Rules

02-08-2022/in Analysis & Features, HLP /by admin

The rules for inheritance and wills included in Law No. 59 of 1953, which was based on Islamic law, are far more comprehensive and detailed than similar rules provided in the personal status laws for the country’s remaining religious groups. The broad outlines of such rules are generally similar across religious groups, but differ in some details. Below we review the most important points where such rules differ and resemble one another, especially for degrees of kinship, distribution of estates, Amiri lands, and barriers to inheritance.

Degrees of kinship

In the personal status laws of various religious groups, the rules for inheritance are based on one main rule: the transfer of inheritance to those with the closest degrees of kinship to the deceased. However, various laws may have different ways of determining kinship. Law No. 59 of 1953 defines the degrees of kinship entitled to inheritance as having three main categories. Kinship of the first (and highest) degree includes a deceased person’s closest surviving relatives, such as their father, grandfather, maternal uncle, spouse, daughters, son’s daughters, aunts and uncles, mother, and grandmother. Second are male descendants such as sons and the male offsprings of sons. Third are certain female relatives, such as paternal and maternal aunts.

However, Law No. 31 of 2006, which applies to members of Syria’s Catholic denominations, divides the degrees of kinship into three different categories. First are the deceased person’s children, grandchildren, and their descendents; second are the parents of the deceased; and third are the deceased’s grandparents.

The degrees of kinship set out in Laws No. 7 of 2011 (for the Greek Orthodox and Syriac Othodox sects), No. 4 of 2012 (for the Armenian Orthodox sect), and No. 2 of 2017 (for the Evangelical sect) largely resemble those in Law No. 31. However, the last two give priority to the brothers and sisters of a deceased person over grandparents.

Rules for wills among Druze

Under Law No. 59 of 1953, a deceased person’s inheritance may not exceed one-third of their total estate, and it is not permissible to make a bequest to an heir. However, this is not the case for the Druze, who may distribute their estates as they please, based on provisions special to the Druze sect laid out in Article 307, Paragraph J. of Law No. 59. In the cases where the deceased person did not specify the amount to distribute from their estate, the principles laid out in Law No. 59 and its amendments would be consulted.

Rules for distributing inheritance

Among the differences between Personal Status Law No. 59 of 1953 and the personal status laws upheld by Syria’s various sects is the mechanism for determining the amount of inheritance each inheritor is entitled to receive. All of the special sect-related laws adhere to the rule of equal inheritance between female and male heirs, while Law No. 59 uses the principle of “double inheritance” – that is, male heirs receive double the inheritance of female heirs who share the same degree of kinship, such as brothers and sisters. However, in some cases Law No. 59 grants women greater inheritance than men.

Estates

An estate is all the assets, real estate, movable properties, and other rights that a person leaves behind after their death. All of the various personal status laws agree that part of the estate must first be used to cover the costs of preparation and burial for the deceased. A second portion must go to paying off their debts and a third to their will. The remainder is divided among their heirs.

Under Law No. 59 of 1953, the entirety of the estate will be distributed, i.e. the deceased person’s movable assets, real estate, and other properties, after fulfilling the obligations outlined above. However, Christian denominations do not consider the marital home to be among the assets that must be distributed after someone’s death as part of the estate. According to the personal status laws of these denominations, the marital home may not be considered part of an estate to be distributed to others until after the death of the surviving spouse, unless that surviving spouse has decided to leave the home.

If a deceased person has no heirs, then their estate goes to the state’s public treasury, according to all personal status laws. The one exception is in Law No. 31 of 2006, which addresses the Catholic denominations. Under Article 180 of this law, the estate of a deceased person with no heirs goes in its entirety to the endowments of the sect to which they belong.

Amiri lands

The Law on Transfer of Immovable Amiri Properties, issued in 1928, sets provisions for transferring the possession of such properties to inheritors. Under this law, female and male inheritors are held in equal regard if they are of the same degree of kinship with the deceased. However, Law No. 4 of 2012, which applies to the Armenian Orthodox community, and Law No. 7 of 2011, which applies to the Greek Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox, explicitly state that their special provisions apply instead if the estate includes Amiri or “mulk” lands.

Barriers to religious inheritance

Among the most prominent barriers to inheritance is when the heir belongs to a different religion from the deceased person. However, this is not the case with the Evangelical community, whose Law No. 2 of 2017 states that religious differences between the heir and the inheritor are not barriers to inheritance, so long as there is reciprocity.

All personal status laws also state that an heir who kills the inheritor may not receive an inheritance from that person. In such cases, the murderer’s share is distributed to the remaining heirs.

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As Weapons Proliferate, Women Face Threats of Physical Harm to Relinquish their Properties

02-08-2022/in HLP, News /by admin

An unchecked proliferation of weapons in Syria, as well as the few means of prevention or social protection for women, has resulted in some husbands using physical threats to force their wives into relinquishing their properties.

Khuloud is in her mid-50s and lives in the countryside of the Tartous governorate. Her husband Riyad is a volunteer in the pro-regime National Defence Forces. Early on in the couple’s marriage, 20 years ago, Riyad discovered that he was infertile. In response, and as a gesture of kindness to his wife, he officially registered their home in Khuloud’s name in the Land Registry. However, with time, tensions developed between the two, resulting in domestic violence. Khuloud says Riyad beat her regularly, which eventually pushed her to file for divorce. Doing so put her life and the lives of her family members in danger.

Riyad said that he would only formally agree to the divorce if Khuloud returned the house to his ownership, she says. However, when she refused, he allegedly threatened her with a handgun. Days later, unknown gunmen opened fire on Khuloud’s family’s home. That night, she says, armed men knocked on Khuloud’s door while her husband was away, telling her to heed her husband’s demand for ownership of the house.

“It’s like I’m in the desert – no neighbours, no police, no evidence that there is a state,” Khuloud tells The Syria Report. She comes from a family with modest means and without any high-ranking relatives in the military or security services who she could turn to. On the other hand, she says her husband’s relationships with security personnel allow him to act essentially free of consequences.

People throughout regime-controlled areas of Syria say that they feel unsafe due to the unchecked proliferation of weapons, particularly among members of the security services or pro-regime militias. Simple disputes run the risk of becoming violent shootouts. Faced with this danger, Khuloud’s family persuaded her to relinquish the house she owned to her husband to protect herself and them. She acquiesced, giving him the ownership of the house in exchange for divorce.

In contrast, Hasna, a 35-year-old woman from coastal Syria, decided to keep her home. Her husband, Radwan, who also hails from the Syrian coast, is affiliated with Air Force Intelligence and works in one of the country’s civilian airports, Hasna says. Because of the Air Force Intelligence’s control over airport security, Radwan was able to accumulate a sizable fortune, eventually investing a portion of his money in real estate.

Through her own work as a hair stylist, Hasna was also able to save some money and make a down payment on a modest home in the Al-Tadhamon district of Damascus. She later finished paying for the house with the help of a bank loan.

Disagreements escalated between Hasna and her husband, with Radwan reportedly threatening her on multiple occasions with various types of guns and knives to persuade her to give up the house. On one occasion, she says he threatened her with a military-grade weapon and followed her when she ran outside to seek safety among her neighbours. Another time, he woke her up with a gun pointed at her head, she added.

Hasna filed a lawsuit against Radwan before the court. Thanks to a high-ranking state-employed relative of hers, Hasna’s case was expedited and she was granted the divorce and a restraining order against Radwan. Still, Hasna says she remained afraid of him, and eventually sold the house to move to a different area altogether.

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Explained: Inheritance Rules Among Different Religious Sects in Syria

26-07-2022/in Analysis & Features, HLP /by admin

There are various personal status laws particular to different religious sects in Syria. However, personal Status Law No. 59 of 1953, which was based on Islamic Sharia principles, was until recently the sole regulator of inheritance and wills for most of the country’s religious groups.

The one exception was for the Druze, to whom Article 307 of Law No. 59 granted the right to self-regulate some personal status matters about them. For instance, it stipulated that wills be carried out for inheritors and others, meaning that individuals could distribute their estates however they deemed appropriate through their wills. However, the Greek Orthodox Personal Status Law No. 23 of 2004 and the Syriac Orthodox Personal Status Law No. 10 of 2004 did not include any such provisions.

This issue only began seeing a change in 2006 when Law No. 31 was issued. The law regulated personal status measures, including inheritance and wills, for members of various Catholic denominations. The denominations included in Law No. 31 were the Melkite Greek Catholics, Maronites, Armenian Catholics, Syriac Catholics, members of the Latin Church, and the Chaldeans.

Meanwhile, Syria’s remaining religious sects remained subject to the provisions of Personal Status Law No. 59 until the issuance of Legislative Decree No. 76 of 2010. This new decree amended Article 308 of Law No. 59, making inheritance and wills subject to the provisions of each individual religious sect’s rules on such matters instead.

Previously, Article 308 had stipulated that “for the Christian and Jewish sects, the religious provisions of each sect shall apply as they relate to betrothal, conditions and contracts for marriage, marital follow-up and alimony, child support, marriage nullification and dissolution, and custody.”

Afterwards came a series of laws focusing on specific religious groups. In 2011, Law No. 7 was issued to regulate provisions for inheritance and wills among the Greek Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox sects. Then in 2012 came Law No. 4, regulating these same matters for the Armenian Orthodox, though this law’s measures would apply upon the date of enforcement of Legislative Decree No. 76/2010. Finally, Law No. 2 of 2017 regulated inheritance and wills for Protestant Evangelicals.

However, no such personal status laws – or even just special provisions for inheritance and wills – were issued for the various minority Islamic sects. These include the Ismailis, Alawites and Yezidis. For those groups, inheritance and wills remain subject to Law No. 59 of 1953 and its amendments. Furthermore, Circular No. 7, issued by the Ministry of Justice in 2021, states explicitly that Syrian Yezidi citizens are subject to Law No. 59 and its amendments regarding matters of personal status.

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Idlib Governorate Offers Absentees’ Pistachio Farms for Auction for the First Time

26-07-2022/in HLP, News /by admin

Throughout June and July, the government-run General Secretariat of the Idlib governorate offered rural farmlands owned by absentees and forcibly displaced residents for auction.

The recent auctions, an imitation of similar auctions regularly organised by the Hama governorate since four years ago, are the first to be held by the Idlib governorate, and included lands cultivated with pistachios. The lands offered this summer included farms in all regime-held parts of Idlib governorate, except for the towns of Al-Ghadfeh, Maarshourein and Maasran, which the regime still administers as closed military zones. Notably, the recent auctions also included pistachio farms in the Al-Tamanaeh district, which belongs administratively to the Idlib governorate, though the Hama governorate had been in charge of auctioning lands there in previous auctions.

Opposition forces took control of the entire Idlib governorate in 2015 but were forced out of the governorate’s southern and eastern countryside by regime military advances in 2019 and 2020. At the time, regime forces managed to regain control of Khan Sheikhoun, Maaret Al-Numan and Saraqeb. Most owners of the lands recently offered for investment in the auctions were forcibly displaced by the fighting to areas that remain under opposition control.

On May 31, 2022, the General Secretariat of the Idlib governorate issued Announcement No. 580, identifying the dozens of towns and cities in rural Idlib where farmlands would become available for investment through the auctions. The secretariat announced 12 dates for the public auctions, all of which would be held in the first half of June 2022 inside a tent erected in the “temporary” Idlib governorate capital of Khan Sheikhoun. Damascus has governed Khan Sheikhoun as the Idlib governorate’s provisional administrative centre since late 2021.

The May 31 announcement specified that the investment period for the auctioned lands would last for one agricultural season. The initial deposit values would be SYP 700,000 per hectare of land, with the final deposits at ten percent of the “referral” value – that is, the initial offering price of the auctioned land. According to the announcement, each potential investor interested in participating in the auctions was required to pay SYP 35,000 to obtain the technical book of conditions from the General Secretariat’s Department of Contracts and to submit one application per real estate area for which they hoped to place a bid.

Following the first round of auctions in June, the General Secretariat organised a new auction for July 16. However, either nobody applied for the new auction or the winners of the previous auctions failed to pay their financial dues. In any case, the General Secretariat demanded that all the new auction winners pay their dues by July 20. Failure to pay would result in the cancellation of the auction results and additional fees to help cover the costs of any future auctions.

The General Secretariat set July 19 as the date to start harvesting the year’s pistachio crop in all parts of the rural parts of the Idlib governorate that are under regime control – whether those lands are under investment from their actual owners or from public auction winners. In either case, the secretariat required farmers to obtain “crop harvest papers” from the governorate’s Directorate of Public and Legal Affairs. Such papers are granted only after applicants obtain clearances from the General Secretariat proving that they have met all their financial obligations for the farmlands.

Ostensibly, preference in the auctions was given to relatives of the farmland owners up to the fourth degree. The General Secretariat required relatives to submit applications in order to participate in the auctions, as well as pay the initial securities for any lands they won and invest in the lands at the final prices at which they were awarded. Amid these requirements, it is unclear what form of preference the landowners’ relatives actually received.

The recent auctions in Idlib bear similarities to those held in recent years in the Hama governorate. Both sets of auctions were based on Public Contracts Law No. 51 of 2004, which addresses contracts related to assets owned by public entities, and on Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform Circulars No. 169 of June 2021 and No. 438 of April 2022. The circulars referred to the conditions for applying to the auctions as well as the deposits that successful bidders must pay.

Until recently, regime forces had worked to harvest pistachio crops from all the lands they control in the Idlib governorate, without landowners’ consent and without compensating them. Back then, the regime considered the Idlib countryside a closed military zone and forbade civilians from entering unless they had prior security approval.

Pistachios are among the most important crops to Idlib’s economy. Cultivation is mainly concentrated around Khan Sheikhoun and Maaret Al-Numan. According to statistics from the Idlib Directorate of Agriculture, some 10,475 hectares of land in the governorate were cultivated with pistachios in 2013.

Picture: Announcement No. 580

Source: Idlib Governorate Facebook page

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Explained: On-Campus University Housing

26-07-2022/in Analysis & Features, HLP /by admin

In early July, President Assad issued Law No. 29 of 2022, converting university campuses into public institutions, known as general commissions, that are independent from a financial and administrative point of view. The purpose of the law is to provide housing for students, conduct maintenance and rehabilitation work, and build new housing units, as well as to manage and invest in facilities belonging to university campuses. The law only applies to both state-run and private universities.

According to the law, university campuses will take the form of independent state-owned institutions. They will be present in any governorate in Syria where there is a university subject to the provisions of University Regulatory Law No. 6 of 2006 and its subsequent amendments.

The general commissions (GC) created under Law No. 29 will assume ownership of all existing or contracted land, buildings, facilities, kiosks, clubs, restaurants, cafeterias, furniture, equipment, machinery, and tools within the university campuses they cover.

Under Article 3 of the law, the purpose of university campuses is to secure adequate and safe housing for students residing on campus in compliance with the standards and criteria set by the board of directors of the GC.

The Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research told the semi-official Al-Watan newspaper that university campuses were previously run as departments affiliated with their university’s deans. Based on Law No. 29, the GCs are now in charge managing each university campus. The board of directors includes representatives from the university and the National Union of Syrian Students (a Baath Party-affiliated organisation).

Each board of directors is chaired by the general manager of the GC who the prime minister appoints. Other members include the university president, the vice president for student affairs, the assistant general manager, and a National Union of Syrian Students representative. The general manager takes on the university campus’ administrative, financial, and executive supervision and proposes a budget. Meanwhile, the board of directors is tasked with determining the general policy for the university campus and setting out plans that achieve those goals. The board is also responsible for approving and implementing its objectives within the scope of any relevant laws, provisions and regulations.

A campus’ board of directors approves any related regulations and conditions for that campus and the mechanisms for accepting students. It proposes the monetary fees for housing to be formally issued by decree from the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research. Finally, the board approves the budget for the GC, accepts endowments, gifts and donations, approves any new construction of student dormitories or related facilities and proposes the employment structure for their campus.

The GC receives its funding from the following sources:

First, 50 percent of students’ annual payments for on-campus housing goes to the GC, while the remaining 50 percent goes to the public state treasury. Second, the GC receives any fees for subcontracting the management of campus restaurants, cafeterias, kiosks, buildings, lands, sports fields and other facilities. Third are grants, aid funding, endowments and bequests accepted by the board of directors. And fourth is the annual subsidy, a portion of the university’s own revenue allocated to the GC by the Higher Education Council.

Law No. 29 requires that university campuses have at least three dormitories. However, this applies only to some campuses, the largest and oldest of which is the University of Damascus with 27 dormitories spread across three separate clusters: Mazzeh, Al-Tabbaleh and Barzeh. The University of Aleppo, meanwhile, has 20 dormitories on its campus, Al-Baath University in Homs has 12 dormitories and Tishreen University in Lattakia 22. There are five more dormitories spread across the other universities in the country none of which hosts at least three dormitories; hence, the campuses remain managed as departments within the universities to which they are affiliated.

Therefore, in total, there are 86 such dormitories across Syria’s university campuses, housing around 70,000 students. Each unit ranges from 120-250 rooms depending on the number of storeys, with each room housing three to eight students, though sometimes more. Students sometimes sleep on the floor due to overcrowding and shortages of beds.

On top of overcrowding, university campuses suffer from poor services, a lack of necessary repairs to sewage, water, electricity and heating networks, and filthy conditions. Drinking water shortages are common. In addition, student dormitories are subject to the same electricity rationing schedules as their surrounding neighbourhoods. For example, dormitories in Mazzeh receive five hours of electricity per day. Some dormitories have even lacked hot water for years.

Also living in the dormitories are a large number of public employees and military members who circumvent laws, bribe campus officials or use force, connections or favouritism to obtain housing. Still, at SYP 3,000 per month, dormitories remain the only option for many poor students from remote, rural parts of Syria.

In theory, any students from outside the governorate where their university is located are entitled to dormitory housing. Priority is usually given to students whose majors require daily class attendance. In some cases, dormitories are allocated to students of certain majors.

It is unclear whether the new law will unify the rules for accepting students who wish to live in dormitories. Those criteria have always differed based on the availability of vacant rooms. For example, the dormitories at the University of Damascus ruled that for the 2020-2021 academic year, students accepted into the dormitories must be registered at the undergraduate level in one of the university’s various colleges or institutes. They also must not have received any university punishment of a higher degree than a warning. Finally, the students had to be from a city 40 kilometres or more from Damascus. Students related to “martyrs” also receive special priority and are exempted from certain preconditions for receiving on-campus housing.

Since 2011, university campuses have seen a heavy security presence. Many students have been pursued or arrested due to their regional or religious backgrounds. Recent years have also witnessed students form paramilitary groups organised by the National Union of Syrian Students.

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Damascus Governorate Issues Detailed Zoning Plan for Jobar

05-07-2022/in HLP, News /by admin

The Damascus governorate announced in late June that it had issued Detailed Zoning Plan No. 106 for the Jobar neighbourhood of Damascus. The formal descriptions for all lands within the new plan were amended to “under regulation,” which means that construction for residential or commercial use or for public services is permitted. Previously, these lands were either protected zones, agricultural areas, or residential expansion zones. 

Under the Urban Planning Law, which was issued in Decree No. 5 of 1982 and amended by Law No. 41 of 2002, a detailed zoning plan is one that includes the main and subsidiary roads, pedestrian walkways, public spaces, and other details for land usage. The plan does not contradict the general master plan or construction codes. 

The Damascus governorate invited residents to review the detailed zoning plan, which is on public display in the lobby of the governorate’s building, and submit any objections within 30 days. The governorate’s regional committee, which is part of the Regional Planning Commission, will then study these objections. Each governorate has a regional committee affiliated to the Regional Planning Commission. After deciding on the objections, the Minister of Public Works and Housing would issue a decree including the detailed zoning plan. Finally, six months later, a presidential decree will be issued adopting the plan. 

While the total area of Jobar was previously less than 250 hectares, the new plan added neighbouring areas that administratively belonged to the Damascus and Rural Damascus governorates, for a new total area of 304 hectares. These newly added areas include parts of Qaboun, which already belonged to the Damascus governorate, as well as parts of Arbeen, Zamalka, and Ayn Tarma, which previously belonged to Rural Damascus. 

Since 2018, when regime forces recaptured opposition strongholds around Damascus, the Damascus governorate has expanded its administrative borders at the expense of the Rural Damascus governorate, especially along the northeast edges of the capital city.

Historically, Jobar was a small village in East Ghouta surrounded by swathes of farmland. Jobar was annexed to the capital city in 1968 under the Damascus master plan drawn by French architect Michel Écochard. The neighbourhood has seen rapid urban expansion since the 1970s, most of it informal and atop agricultural lands. 

Opposition forces controlled Jobar from 2012 to 2018. During this time, the neighbourhood became the first line of defence for opposition-held East Ghouta, with rebels building many fortifications, most notably trenches and tunnels. Jobar was the site of intense battles and faced aerial bombardments that destroyed many of the neighbourhood’s buildings. Finally, after the regime’s last military campaign on the area in early 2018, the remaining residents were forcibly displaced to northern Syria alongside residents of East Ghouta. Since then, regime forces have prevented people from entering Jobar while continuing a low-scale campaign to demolish buildings and remove rubble. 

The new detailed zoning plan was based on Decree No. 5 of 1982 and Écochard’s general plan for Damascus, which was approved by Ministerial Decree No. 2401 of 1968. The job of studying detailed zoning plans usually goes to the General Company for Engineering Studies (GCES), an affiliate of the Minister of Public Works and Housing. However, the Higher Institute for Regional Planning, which is affiliated with Damascus University, took on the task of studying the new Jobar plan. The plan was then approved by the Damascus governorate council in Decree No. 44 on September 7, 2021. It is unclear why the governorate delayed the announcement of the detailed zoning plan until June 2022.

The Damascus governorate’s Director of Urban Planning said that the implementation area for Detailed Zoning Plan No. 106 would be subject to the provisions of Planning and Urban Development Law No. 23 of 2015. What he meant by this is unclear, as Law No. 23 gives administrative units several options for regulating informal housing areas. First, an administrative unit may apply the provisions of Law No. 23 to such areas. Second, it may apply the provisions of Real Estate Development and Investment Law No. 15 of 2008 and its amendments based on an agreement between the real estate developer in a given area and the existing property owners or between the real estate developer and local administrative authorities. Finally, an administrative unit may choose to apply the provisions of the Expropriation Law in force in order to implement a zoning plan for the area in question. 

The degree to which local authorities will choose to implement Law No. 23 in Jobar will not become clear until the final decree approving the neighbourhood’s new detailed zoning plan is issued. 

Under Law No. 23, land is designated for construction according to both a general master plan and a detailed zoning plan through one of two ways: subdivision by the landowner or regulation by the local administrative body. In both cases, the implementation of Law No. 23 leads to the eviction of residents of that land without providing them alternative housing. 

Law No. 23 also entitles the administrative unit to the free deduction of up to 50 percent of private properties in governorate centres in return for the benefit of adding those properties to the zoning area.  

Finally, Law No. 23 stipulates that, as part of the zoning process, an administrative unit forms a compulsory land readjustment committee tasked with giving rights holders their shares of property in the same location as their original properties or nearby. As part of this readjustment process, rights holders within the area undergoing regulation receive land designated for construction within that same area as a form of compensation for losing their original properties. 

A section of the Jobar zoning plan

Source: the Damascus governorate

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Testimonies: Women Who Lost Their Husbands and Their HLP Rights

05-07-2022/in Analysis & Features, HLP /by admin

Many Syrian women who have lost their husbands to wartime battles, detainments, or forced disappearances have lost their housing, land, and property rights. Some of these women have found themselves amid difficult choices: either they preserve their HLP rights under conditions dictated by the families of their deceased husbands, or they lose those rights altogether. 

Samar is a woman in her 30s with two children. In late 2011, after armed clashes erupted between regime and opposition forces in their hometown of Al-Mleiha in East Ghouta, the family fled to Jaramana, a Damascus suburb that remained under regime control. There, they rented a house in the hope that the clashes would soon subside and they could return to Al-Mleiha. But that hope was shattered. Samar’s husband, a blacksmith with no interest in opposition activity, was arrested during a security raid in Jaramana. Security forces targeted him merely because he was from Al-Mleiha, a type of arrest known in Syria as being “due to identity.” Samar was unable to find information about his fate or his captors. 

Samar married young, gave birth to two children, and became a stay-at-home parent. She was unable to complete her education and never worked outside the house. When her husband was arrested, she could no longer pay rent. She and her children moved into a commercial warehouse in Jaramana, whose owner sympathised with them and let them stay for free. Samar found sporadic work cleaning houses in Jaramana to feed her family. 

By coincidence, Samar learned in mid-2015 that her husband had been killed under torture. Then in 2018, after regime forces recaptured all of East Ghouta, she returned to Al-Mleiha, where her husband’s family had a multi-storey apartment building. Samar’s husband owned an apartment in the building and a shop on the ground floor. 

Samar’s father-in-law suggested that she marry another of his sons who was already married and had children. He justified the suggestion by explaining to Samar that she was a single woman and would need to marry. It would be preferable, he reasoned, for her to marry her brother-in-law, thereby protecting her children and preserving her deceased husband’s property. He also implicitly threatened Samar that in refusing the marriage proposal, she would not be able to return to live in the family building or receive the rental proceeds from her husband’s shop and could even lose custody of her children. Samar tried convincing her father-in-law that she would never remarry and devote herself to raising the children in the family home under his supervision. But Samar’s father-in-law insisted that her return to the building depended on her marrying her late husband’s brother. 

Samar refused the marriage offer. Her years in Jaramana, a relatively diverse area that felt more open-minded than Al-Mleiha’s mostly conservative atmosphere, contributed to Samar’s decision, she told The Syria Report. Living in Jaramana taught Samar to depend on herself rather than follow societal expectations and to emulate role models of educated and self-reliant working women. 

Samar said she decided to stick with her decision and face the consequences. She and her children stayed in the warehouse in Jaramana, but this time she started working in a shop while continuing to clean homes. The additional income allowed her to start paying half the rent to the warehouse owner after years of living there for free. As a result, Samar gained self-confidence and felt capable of facing her husband’s family. She requested help from a group of activists in Jaramana to secure legal support to maintain custody of her children. However, Samar was barred from living in her husband’s family home and receiving the income from his shop. 

Nawal’s story played out differently. Originally from Qalamoun in Rural Damascus, Nawal decided to submit to her husband’s family after he was killed by stray gunfire in 2016. A mother and an engineer, she was financially independent and supported her own family. Still, she faced intense pressure from her deceased husband’s family to marry one of his surviving brothers amid threats that she could lose many of her rights if she refused. As with Samar, her father-in-law led efforts to pressure Nawal into the marriage. According to him, Nawal conveys, the deceased husband had been very wealthy and left behind assets that should remain within the family. 

Nawal’s father-in-law pressured her to marry her late husband’s brother, who was several years younger than her. When his efforts failed, he incited his sons to seize the remaining real estate and other properties, all of which were registered equally between Nawal and her deceased husband. Still, Nawal could not dispose of any of the properties, except for the house in which she still lived with her children. Meanwhile, her father-in-law disposed of his late son’s properties as if they were his own, preventing Nawal from receiving any of the earnings. 

Faced with the prospect of losing all of her and her husband’s properties and the shares belonging to her children, Nawal decided to marry her brother-in-law in the end. She told The Syria Report she wanted to live in peace with her children and ensure that they would inherit their late father’s assets. 

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No Title Deeds for Inheritors in the Basilia City Project

05-07-2022/in HLP, News /by admin

The distribution process for share certificates in the Al-Qadam zoned real estate area of eastern Damascus’ Basilia City is witnessing significant modifications – namely, changing the legal description of already zoned land and other changes to those properties’ entries in the Land Registry. 

On May 31, the Directorate for Implementation of Decree No. 66, affiliated with the Damascus governorate, invited rights holders in the Al-Qadam zoned real estate area to their share certificates (documents that entitle them to wholly or partly own shares within that area).

Decree No. 66 of 2012 stipulated the establishment of two zoned real estate areas in Damascus. The first, located southeast of Mazzeh, is known as Marota City, while the second, which includes all or some of Mazzeh, Kafr Sousseh, Qanawat Basatin, Darayya, and Qadam, is known as Basilia City. In late 2021, the Directorate for Implementation of Decree No. 66 announced that it had begun handing over share certificates within Basilia City. 

The shares for each rights holder are calculated by more than one committee via a complex process under Decree No. 66. To obtain their share certificates, rights holders must submit an official application to the Decree No. 66 directorate, file copies of their original title deeds for their properties, provide identity cards and pay a fee of SYP4,000 for each certificate. Two weeks after the application submission, the certificates are issued and approved by the Damascus governorate. 

Notably, Decree No. 66 directorate now requires that real estate owners or their legal representatives attend in person to receive the share certificates. So far, the directorate has not permitted the heirs of deceased real estate owners to obtain the deeds. According to one directorate employee who spoke with The Syria Report, the directorate is planning to hand over deeds to heirs in the coming weeks, but only after the heirs present legal inheritance documents. 

According to a local correspondent for The Syria Report, this discrepancy is due to a recent issue, namely that the legal descriptions for the land in parts of Basilia City have been changed, even after they were already zoned. Prior to the zoning of the area, the properties in Qadam were listed as Amiri lands and located outside the zoning plan. This meant that if the landowners died, the lands were subject to the legal inheritance process as issued by the civil magistrate court in accordance with the Law on Transfer of Immovable Amiri Properties of 1928. 

However, when Amiri lands are annexed into a city, as is currently happening with the Qadam Amiri lands in Basilia City, the legal description of those properties automatically changes from Amiri to “mulk,” or owned land. When that occurs, the provisions of legal inheritance, as laid out in Personal Status Law No. 76 of 2010, are applied instead. For inheritors, this change of rules means that when a re-zoning process, like that in Basilia City, occurs, they must submit a legal inheritance document compiled before the Sharia court. Distribution of legal inheritance must comply with several essential rules: (1) Distribution favours the nearest degree of kinship to the deceased; (2) Distribution must favour relatives with closer paternal kinship to the deceased; and (3) Male heirs receive double the share of inheritance as female heirs, though only when they have an equal degree of kinship to the deceased. 

It is unclear whether these same procedures are being applied to other real estate areas in Basilia City. 

Meanwhile, rights holders currently living outside of Syria as refugees and who are wanted by the security services cannot return home to receive their share certificates. They also cannot appoint legal representatives to obtain the bonds on their behalf because legal representation requires prior security approval. In such cases, the security services require refugees to undergo “security settlement” at Syrian embassies in their host countries, on top of paying monetary compensation for their compulsory military service if they have failed to serve. Afterwards, they may apply for security approval required for legal representation.  

According to the correspondent, some concessions were also granted for issuing the share certificates, such as giving additional authority to the Decree No. 66 directorate to remove “upgrades” to some notations within the real estate pages for properties in the zoned area. It is still unclear where the limits of this authority lie and what types of notations the directorate is permitted to remove. However, real estate owners have the right to submit a request to the General Directorate of Cadastral Affairs to upgrade certain notes placed within the Land Registry for their properties. They may follow up on the request at the Decree No. 66 directorate headquarters, rather than before the court, which was previously the case. The directorate refers the property owner to the competent authority in cases where the Decree No. 66 directorate does not have the authority to upgrade certain notations.

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Recovery Plan in Hard-hit East Aleppo District Sees Involvement from Pro-Regime Militia

28-06-2022/in HLP, News /by admin

Photo: Demolition of unlicensed structures in Aleppo’s Al-Maasraniyeh neighbourhood. Source: social media

The Aleppo City Council has begun implementing a recovery plan in several of the city’s eastern neighbourhoods under the supervision of a UN programme and in cooperation with the Ministry of Local Administration and Environment. 

The responsibility for the implementation of the plan falls to the Services Directorate in the Qadhi Askar district, which is one of the Aleppo City Council’s largest service directorates. It covers an area that includes the neighbourhoods of Qadhi Askar, Al-Maysar, Karam Al-Tahhan, Jouret Awad, Karam Khiyateh, Karam Al-Beik, Karam Al-Nahhas, Karam Al-Maktabi, Karam Al-Qaterji, Karam Al-Jabal, Sidd Al-Lawz, Dhaheret Awad, Al-Jazmati, Al-Shaar, Al-Arqoub, Tariq Al-Bab, Al-Maasraniyeh and Jisr Al-Sakhour. Some of these neighbourhoods are home to large swathes of informal housing. 

The initial stage of the recovery plan includes rehabilitating a number of gardens: rebuilding outer fences, cleanup, covering the ground with fresh soil, planting palm trees, maintaining any sewage and drinking water networks that pass through them, replacing damaged garden seats and extending a network of solar-powered lights. 

The recovery plan will include all neighbourhoods within the Qadhi Askar district, an official in the district’s services directorate told The Syria Report. Later stages of the plan will focus on rehabilitating basic services, repairing sewage and drinking water networks, repairing roads and removing rubble, especially rubble that poses a public safety risk or that blocks roads. The plan will also include opening main roads and side streets, removing berms and cement blocks, weeding and re-paving roads and sidewalks, and implementing daily cleanup efforts. 

Government bodies, local administrative units, NGOs and organisations linked to the Baath Party, as well as pro-Iran militias, are contributing to implementing the plan, according to the services directorate source. Alongside the Qadhi Askar Services Directorate, the Education Directorate and a local Baath Party branch are also helping to organise cleanup events and involve schoolchildren and party members in service activities. The source added that the east Aleppo branch of Faylaq Mudafaeen an Halab (the “Aleppo Defenders Brigade”), a component of the Syrian Hezbollah militia, is also planning to contribute personnel, machinery and engineering equipment for rubble and garbage removal and road reopening efforts. The group will also work with the Qadhi Askar Services Directorate to remove cement blocks and reduce the number of its security and military checkpoints within the neighbourhoods targeted by the recovery plan. Those neighbourhoods are under the control of Faylaq Mudafaeen an Halab. 

Most neighbourhoods in the Qadhi Askar district were severely damaged by regime barrel bombs when the opposition controlled the area in 2012-2016. This is due, in part, to opposition forces having taken a handful of service and government buildings in Qadhi Askar as their main headquarters. 

Qadhi Askar also witnessed two large waves of displacement. The first was in 2014 when regime forces intensified barrel bomb strikes on the district, and the second came in 2016 during the forced displacement of the opposition from east Aleppo. 

Officials have reassured local residents that the recovery plan is merely “cosmetic” and aimed at rehabilitating roads as well as sewage and water networks, but many people are not convinced. Residents told The Syria Report of a rumour that the plan will include demolishing unlicensed buildings in the Al-Maasraniyeh neighbourhood–a campaign they fear could also spread to other parts of Qadhi Askar. The Aleppo City Council implemented large-scale demolition campaigns in March and April 2021, targeting unlicensed buildings on land in Al-Maasraniyeh that the state had expropriated for a planned youth housing project. 

In reality, Aleppo authorities have not stopped demolishing damaged buildings in Qadhi Askar since regime forces seized control in late 2016. The city council has refused to grant restoration licenses for partially damaged buildings in some neighbourhoods, on the grounds that those areas contain swathes of informal housings that had been constructed on state-owned land. Remaining residents of Qadhi Askar, especially those living in informal housings, fear that the regime could exploit the UN-sponsored recovery plan and turn the plan into a campaign to remove partially damaged or structurally unsound buildings. Such removals would threaten residents’ housing, land and property rights.

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Farmers’ Union in Raqqa Leases Displaced Landowners’ Properties

28-06-2022/in HLP, News /by admin

This year has not seen any public auction to lease agricultural lands belonging to IDPs who fled regime-held territory in the Sabkheh and Maadan districts in the Raqqa governorate. Instead, a handful of existing lease contracts were renewed for the same tenants who rented the lands in the last agricultural season. In some cases where previous tenants declined to renew their contracts, the lands were leased to pro-regime militia leaders in the area.  

The rental price per hectare of land reached SYP 500,000 in 2022, while last year prices ranged from SYP 300,000 to 400,000. 

The Raqqa Farmers’ Syndicate announced on March 14, 2021 that it would hold the area’s first public auction for agricultural lands. However, the syndicate did not specify which administrative area the auctioned lands would belong to or the type of crops that winning tenants would be required to cultivate.

According to a correspondent for The Syria Report, the lands offered in the auctions are located in the Sabkheh and Maadan districts of the Raqqa governorate and are owned by people who fled the area after regime forces took control in mid-2017. The local farmers’ syndicate includes 22 farmers’ societies in villages across Sabkheh and Maadan, an area known for cultivating cotton, wheat and corn.

In Syria, a farmers’ society is a group formed at the village level or among a group of neighbouring villages. A farmers’ syndicate, on the other hand, is a group of farmers’ societies and runs at the administrative district level. A group of syndicates form a governorate farmers’ union and, finally, those governorate unions together comprise the nationwide General Farmers’ Union. Because the area under regime control in the Raqqa governorate is small, the governorate appears to have only one syndicate grouping the different farmers societies.

There were very few applicants for investment in the previous auction in March 2021, prompting the farmers’s syndicate to postpone it more than once before finally holding the auction on May 1, 2021. This lack of interest in the auction was due mainly to the strong tribal relationships between current residents of Sabkheh and Maadan and former residents who fled to areas of the governorate that are now under the control of the majority-Kurdish Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria (AANES). People from the area typically frown on any social rifts between current residents and displaced persons, as they are all members of the area’s tribes. In some cases, auction bidders faced serious threats and were forced to withdraw.  

Though the local farmers’ syndicate announced in March 2021 that it intended to lease 66.7 hectares of agricultural land, a former mukhtar — a neighbourhood mayor — of one of the area villages told The Syria Report that the actual leased area was many times greater than that number. According to the mukhtar, in his village alone some 130 hectares of land were offered for rent.

The total area of farmland offered for rent in 2022 is less than in 2021, the correspondent said. This is due to some displaced land owners returning home to undergo “reconciliation” with the regime, a process that involves opposition-affiliated locals settling their status with regime security services, undergoing investigations and writing personal pledges not to engage again with anti-regime activities. 

In 2021, each village in the Sabkheh and Maaden districts formed its own committee to determine which displaced land owners’ properties would be offered in the auction. Each of the committees included that village’s farmers society president, the village mukhtar and a Baath Party secretary. However, displaced land owners were not the only ones whose properties were included in the auction. Also listed in the auction were agricultural lands owned by current residents whose opposition-affiliated sons had fled to AANES territory in the Raqqa governorate, as well as those whose sons had refused to be enlisted in the regime’s military forces. 

Previously, in the 2019 and 2020 agricultural seasons, regime military officers and some members of the Tribal Army and the Friends Movement, two pro-regime militias, took possession of some displaced landowners’ farms, which they cultivated and harvested from without providing any justification or legal basis for doing so. 

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Explained: How Did Decree No. 40 Make Unlicensed Construction a Felony?

28-06-2022/in Analysis & Features, HLP /by admin

Article 2 of Decree No. 40 of 2012, which addressed the removal of so-called unlicensed structures (structures built without proper licence), stipulated that such structures be removed if they had been constructed after the issuance of the 2012 decree. This measure would apply no matter the type, location, investment category or usage of an unlicensed structure in question, which would be demolished and the rubble subsequently removed at the expense of whomever had benefited from the structure. 

Article 2 also imposed a fine on anyone responsible for building the unlicensed structure, which could include the owner, contractor, supervisor, or construction engineer, as well as any employees of the local administrative body who failed in their duty to monitor and halt the unlicensed construction project. 

Finally, Article 2 also stipulates measures for a special case: If the unlicensed structure is found in a report by the relevant governorate’s Public Safety Committee to be insufficiently durable and at risk of collapse, then those proven responsible for constructing it face three years imprisonment. If the structure collapses and leads to the death of one or more individuals, then the punishment increases to at least 10 years hard labour and three times the usual fine, in addition to addressing the rights of the deceased individuals’ heirs.

There are sporadic campaigns across Syria to demolish structurally unsound buildings in accordance with Decree No. 40. Such campaigns have targeted both licensed and unlicensed structures. It is unclear whether anyone has been convicted yet under Decree No. 40 in such cases.

Essentially, Decree No. 40 includes penalties that transform unlicensed construction from a small offence punishable by fine into a misdemeanour deserving of at least three years imprisonment and, in certain cases, even a felony punishable by longer prison terms and hard labour. Under the law, felonies are considered the most serious crimes, a list that also includes murder. A misdemeanour, on the other hand, is a smaller crime and could include theft, while “violations” are the least serious category of crimes, in view of the lack of harm resulting from them. 

Here Decree No. 40 appears to have a legal loophole in one special case, in which the classification of an unlicensed construction can change from a mere “violation” into a felony without the will of the perpetrator and regardless of the original intent of the structure. That loophole appears in cases where an unlicensed structure built after the issuance of Decree No. 40 collapses or is at risk of collapse–not because it was insufficiently durable at the time of its construction, but rather because of direct bombing, wartime combat or the residual structural impacts of bombardment. 

Instead of punishing the parties responsible for the bombardment that caused the structural damage, Decree No. 40 holds the builders of the unlicensed structure legally responsible should the structure collapse or face the risk of doing so. 

Since Decree No. 40 was issued in 2012, many buildings that had been constructed without proper licences collapsed due to cracks caused by direct bombardment as well as indirect nearby bombings that nevertheless wrought structural damage. 

This grey area–in which Decree No. 40 may target structures that have collapsed or risk collapse due to war damages rather than poor construction–still exists. For example, around 3,000 buildings are at risk of collapsing in east Aleppo, according to a report by the Public Safety Committee issued in 2020. In September 2020, the head of that committee suggested that the structural safety issues were due to a “flaw in the construction engineering and materials used in construction.” By this reasoning, those responsible for the structural dangers and deserving of strict penalties were those who had built the unlicensed buildings, with no regard for the heavy bombardment that hit east Aleppo by the regime forces when the area was under opposition control in 2012-2016. 

The provisions of Decree No. 40 remain in force today, and have not been amended despite this loophole. This is also despite the subsequent issuance of Law No. 3 of 2018, which stipulates the removal of rubble from buildings damaged by natural or unnatural causes, or buildings that are subject to laws that require their demolition. That is, Law No. 3 did not directly address unlicensed construction or stipulate penalties for those found responsible, but rather codified removing the rubble of buildings that had been demolished under Decree No. 40. 

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official gazette

Issue 30, Part 2, 2022

18-08-2022/0 Comments/in English, OFFICIAL Gazette /by admin
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Issue 30, Part 1, 2022

17-08-2022/0 Comments/in English, OFFICIAL Gazette /by admin
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Issue 29, Part 2, 2022

11-08-2022/0 Comments/in English, OFFICIAL Gazette /by admin
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Issue 29, Part 1, 2022

10-08-2022/0 Comments/in English, OFFICIAL Gazette /by admin
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Issue 28, Part 1 Addendum, 2022

04-08-2022/0 Comments/in English, OFFICIAL Gazette /by admin
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Issue 28, Part 2, 2022

04-08-2022/0 Comments/in English, OFFICIAL Gazette /by admin
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Issue 28, Part 1, 2022

03-08-2022/0 Comments/in English, OFFICIAL Gazette /by admin
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Issue 27, Part 2, 2022

28-07-2022/0 Comments/in English, OFFICIAL Gazette /by admin
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Issue 27, Part 1, 2022

27-07-2022/0 Comments/in English, OFFICIAL Gazette /by admin
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Issue 26, Part 2, 2022

21-07-2022/0 Comments/in English, OFFICIAL Gazette /by admin
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Issue 26, Part 1, 2022

20-07-2022/0 Comments/in English, OFFICIAL Gazette /by admin
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Issue 26, Part 1 Addendum, 2022

20-07-2022/0 Comments/in English, OFFICIAL Gazette /by admin
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Issue 25, Part 2, 2022

07-07-2022/0 Comments/in English, OFFICIAL Gazette /by admin
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Issue 25, Part 1, 2022

06-07-2022/0 Comments/in English, OFFICIAL Gazette /by admin
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Issue 24, Part 2, 2022

30-06-2022/0 Comments/in English, OFFICIAL Gazette /by admin
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Issue 24, Part 1, 2022

29-06-2022/0 Comments/in English, OFFICIAL Gazette /by admin
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Issue 23, Part 2, 2022

23-06-2022/0 Comments/in English, OFFICIAL Gazette /by admin
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Issue 23, Part 1, 2022

22-06-2022/0 Comments/in English, OFFICIAL Gazette /by admin
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Issue 22, Part 2, 2022

16-06-2022/0 Comments/in English, OFFICIAL Gazette /by admin
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Issue 22, Part 1, 2022

15-06-2022/0 Comments/in English, OFFICIAL Gazette /by admin
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Page 1 of 65123›»

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  • Issue 30, Part 1, 2022
  • Issue 29, Part 2, 2022
  • Issue 29, Part 1, 2022
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