Natacha Danon

Damascus University’s Political Science Faculty confronts its Baathist past, as professors and students navigate de-Baathification, political divisions and the uncertain boundaries of academic freedom in post-Assad Syria.

A water dispute outside Damascus is testing Syria’s new authorities as worsening shortages, competing local demands and grievances inherited from Assad-era governance collide in two neighboring towns.

As Syria charts a new course and transitional justice efforts proceed, advocates see a unique opportunity to reform the country’s nationality law and address statelessness. 

As the trial of former Assad regime security official Atef Najib moves forward, some lawyers and human rights experts warn that it may be premature in the absence of a legal framework for transitional justice.

As Alawites mark one year since the massacres in Syria’s coastal regions, residents of Baniyas say fear persists, wounds remain unhealed and political demands unmet.

As the Syrian government shuts down Deir e-Zor’s informal oil refineries, a local industry faces collapse even as nearby communities are likely to reap health and environmental benefits.

As Raqqa embarks on a future without the SDF, the northeastern Syrian city faces the delicate work of reintegrating former fighters and repairing social fractures left by years of shifting rule. 

Encircled by government forces and without basic services, residents of Kurdish-majority Kobani fear a return to the city’s darkest days as the end of a fragile ceasefire approaches.

Nearly a year after the fall of the Assad regime, some in SDF-held northeastern Syria await a “liberation” of their own amid an uptick in arbitrary arrests, including for supporting the new government.

The first trial of hundreds of suspects accused of involvement in killings in Alawite-majority areas of the Syrian coast marks the start of a closely watched and unprecedented accountability process.