Shortly after the fall of the regime, independent Syrian media, mostly from exile, opened up to a new Syria: finally, the boundaries formed over the past 14 years abroad and inside the country had disappeared. Independent media had to find a new approach to address an audience polarised since the outbreak of the revolution and to deal with a transitional government that changed its approach to the media: from unlimited freedom, created by the sudden fall of the regime, to gradual restrictions on coverage, with different work permits. In this article, SyriaUntold attempted to address the difficulties faced by the independent media throughout this year, taking the kidnapping of women in the coastal region as an example.
Activists in the Coast region reported on violations against Alawites since the fall of the regime. But when it came to women kidnappings, which intensified after March massacres, the news remained confined to Syrian social media, vague in their details, and mirroring the current polarization.
No official press coverage or any media close to the transitional government appeared. The issue preoccupied instead the editorial boards of independent media outlets, including SyriaUntold, especially after the threats against a feminist activist who dared to report on a case she had witnessed firsthand in Idlib, her hometown.
At the time, despite its motivation, SyriaUntold encountered significant difficulties in finding correspondents on the ground: shortly after the massacres, journalists were unable to move around for security reasons. Human rights reports and statements pointed to almost daily violations against members of the Alawite community in the past months. In addition, the families of the kidnapped women were afraid to speak to the media, not having yet recovered from the shock of the massacres, not to mention the lack of social, civil, and community traditions for dealing with the media in a region that was almost completely under Assad's control. Furthermore, conditions didn0t apply to SyriaUntold methodology of collecting testimonies and cross-checking them with data from human rights organizations: none of the Syrian human rights organizations had taken on the task until that time.
The editorial board of Al-Jumhuriya found itself in a similar situation. Editor in chief Qasim al-Basri said that they had decided to publish as soon as they had sufficient data for investigation. They resorted to include individual cases in their daily posts on social media, along with opinion pieces and testimonies related to the abduction and rape of women.
Daraj, based in Beirut and providing extensive coverage on Syria, was the first to publish an investigation in Arabic on 17 April about the disappearance of Alawite women, tracking 10 cases of abduction. Shortly after, Le Monde published a report on its website on 28 April about 50 Alawite disappeared women.
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Ammar al-Mamoun, executive director of Daraj, told us about their collaboration with a journalist who chose to remain anonymous “for personal safety reasons and to continue following up on stories: the details are obtained in complete secrecy, in order not to harm the journalist or the victims and their families”. He explained that "the challenges at the field level begin with the fear of journalists on the ground in still dangerous areas, and at the same time, the fear of the victims' families of further escalation. This double spiral of fear required a high level of trust between those conducting the investigation and the victims' families. It’s unclear who is carrying out the kidnappings or who is threatening: the testimonies we collected from the victims directly accused members of the Syrian General Security, either through their failure to adhere to any professional standards when recording kidnappings (and then denying the kidnapping itself), or through collusion in one way or another with the kidnappers. Therefore, any information that may reveal the identities of the victims means threatening the kidnapped women themselves”, as he described it.
Regarding the approach to verify the information, Al-Mamoun explained: "We initially relied on a local network in collaboration with journalists to confirm the identities of the abductees and the circumstances of the abductions, not only from the victims' families and relatives, but also from those around them, also to verify the nature of the accusations faced by the victims' families. This stage was particularly sensitive: after we discovered that a number of the abducted women had returned to their homes, these stories overlapped with those of the families and relatives of the abducted women who had not returned, and with the evidence provided by some of the victims' families in the form of photographs of cars and audio recordings. There was a recurring pattern, we were not talking about individual cases but about an almost systematic context”. Despite having “text messages, transfer receipts, conversations and recordings of conversations, and sometimes photos of the kidnappers' cars, threatening messages, and even photos of some of the kidnapped women showing signs of torture”, they decided not to publish them out of concern for the victims' safety.
At the beginning of May 2025, what became known as the “Mira and Ahmed” case caused further media confusion. Photos and videos of the marriage of an Alawite girl named Mira to a Sunni young man named Ahmed were circulated with rumors that she had been kidnapped, before the two appeared as lovers in a video posted by an activist on social media. After the case was closed, it raised doubts as to whether it was a trap aimed at discrediting journalists. Qasim al-Basri recalls how they published the available verified information about the case in their daily newsletter, but were still criticized after the aforementioned interview with an activist. Nevertheless, he emphasizes that al-Jumhuriyya editorial board did not discuss whether it was appropriate to publish the case, but rather the necessity of publishing the documented details and opening a discussion about the incident and its repercussions, especially in terms of its use as a tool to undermine the validity of the abductions of women.
Journalist Ammar al-Mamoun explains that they were not hesitant or afraid of risking their credibility when they published the investigation: they prefer to verify that it is complete and meets professional and safety standards, even if it meant delaying the publication. He notes that there was debate in the editorial team about “the ambiguity of the (purpose) of the abductions: was it ransom? Was it marriage? Was it slavery?” The issue of slavery opened up a wide debate within the editorial team. Is the expression accurate and verified? But we avoided falling into the trap of using a phrase that was not proven, and adhered to journalistic language and the information we had verified".
Coverage of suspected cases
Journalists in Western countries such as Germany resort to a style of investigative journalism called “suspicion coverage”, used in dealing with “Me Too” and similar cases. It is based on interviews with potential victims who have credible, corroborating accusations against a public figure, and aims to open an internal and/or criminal investigation, in the hope that others will come forward with their testimonies. In this way, the media does not have to wait a long time and risk new violations, simply because it cannot talk about a “phenomenon” or systematic violations. It gives the accused figures the opportunity to defend themselves against allegations of negligence or involvement.
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Ammar al-Mamoun confirms that publishing the investigation was a conscious decision, in line with the aforementioned approach. They communicated at the time "with several authorities in Damascus and the Coast region, but the majority didn’t respond. We later learned that the General Security Directorate had received complaints about the cases. At the same time, the policy of denial practiced by the media and activists affiliated with the authorities ran parallel to the spread of cases on social media".
Regarding the results of publishing their investigation, he says that the phenomenon has become public, to the extent that it has been shared by some media close to the authorities, encouraging many of the victims' families to talk about the issue, and “some of the abducted women have begun to ‘return’”. The word ‘return’ is ambiguous here, as there are no clear details about the victims we contacted who preferred not to talk".
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Nevertheless, the impact of the investigation published by Reuters on 27 June surpassed all previous investigations and articles, dominating the pages of all Syrian media outlets. Along with others published by the agency, this investigation became a “trend” and prompted some members of the Syrian public to reproach whether they should wait for an international agency to conduct such investigations and about the Syrian press's failure to play its role here.
These questions overlook the difference between the favorable conditions for the work of the international media and those experienced by the independent Syrian press.
Qasim al-Basri points out that international press teams went to the Coast immediately after the massacres without facing the security obstacles that stand in the way of local media, because they are “foreigners” protected by the authorities, which do not provide the same level of protection to local media. Thus, Reuters and the New York Times, among other foreign media outlets, were able to send a team under the protection of the general security forces and act as they wished. "We did not have the ability (to do so). There were media outlets affiliated with or sympathetic to the new regime, such as news agencies and television stations (e.g., Syria, Al Jazeera, and Al Arabiya), providing coverage favorable to the regime, and international media outlets.
However, the authorities do not provide security protection or ideal working conditions for the international press, when it comes to field investigations of war crimes. When security forces hover over journalists, witnesses find it difficult to speak openly in front of them. Protection may also restrict journalists' movement and allow security personnel to control their movements, preventing them from going to an area they want to explore and find out what happened there, according to international journalists who spoke to SyriaUntold.
After a period of unlimited freedom in journalistic work following the fall of the regime, the transitional government imposed different types of work permits in terms of duration, scope of movement, and subject matter, both inside and outside government institutions.
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Talking to colleagues from the independent Syrian press, conditions and capabilities make the difference between independent Syrian media and Reuters, not least financial capabilities, making it unrealistic for the public to expect the same output from both. "If we call a minister and ask for a comment, he will treat us differently than he would treat Reuters”, Qasim from al-Jumhuriyya refers. “Even witnesses feel that giving their testimony to Reuters can protect them more because the protection enjoyed by international news agencies cannot be subjected to any measures by the Syrian authorities other than perhaps a statement denying the findings of their investigations. This is in contrast to local media outlets, whose collaborators may face more serious and complex measures”.
Although SyriaUntold editorial board agrees with Qasim's assessment of the difficulty of taking action, it believes that this does not absolve local media outlets of their responsibility, especially since they have previously been able to deal with more difficult topics under the Assad regime's near-total domination and have published many controversial and courageous articles. The weakness of independent Syrian press coverage is partly due to its differing views towards the transitional government, which may delay coverage or change its angles.
SyriaUntold believes that, given the desire of most institutions to return to work and form a team inside the country, a return conditional on the approval of the transitional government authorities, there is an unconscious fear of angering the government or clashing with it. This does not mean that it is aligning itself with the authorities or compromising its values: but it delays coverage and pushes the issue of verification and credibility before publication to higher levels.
Independent press adapts to circumstances as reports of abductions continue
After Reuters published its investigation, a series of international reports and investigations into the abduction of Alawite women followed, such as those published by the British magazine The Spectator and the German website Deutsche Welle in early July. The issue then appeared on all Syrian news sites at the end of that month, when the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Amnesty International issued statements expressing their concern about these reports and calling on the transitional government authorities to investigate.
The kidnappings did not stop. Instead, it spread to Sweida, which witnessed massacres as the transitional forces attempted to impose their control. As a result, more press coverage related to the kidnappings was published, including on the “Spotlight on Syrian Civil Society” series on SyriaUntold. The transitional authorities remained silent for many months, prompting women's rights activists to launch a campaign with the slogan “Stop the kidnapping of Syrian women” as the spotlight series recounts.
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That silence was broken by a surprise statement from the Interior Ministry of the transitional government, which angered many human rights and public figures. The statement claimed that a committee, whose members and start date were not named, had concluded its investigation and found that only one of the 42 or 43 cases of abduction circulating on social media was real and criminal in nature.
As the situation remained dire and reports of kidnappings continued, independent Syrian media outlets such as Al-Jumhuriya and other international media outlets were able to cover the story, which does not necessarily reflect better conditions on the ground, but rather an adaptation to them.
Observers note that Reuters' coverage of the massacres in Sweida has not been on the ground for months, as it was on the Coast, confirming a change in its approach. Like other independent media outlets, it has been unable to gain access to the area due to security restrictions imposed by the transitional government.
For the purpose of completing this article, SyriaUntold continues to communicate with another independent Syrian media outlet currently active inside Syria and sent a set of written questions to its editor-in-chief, but he chose not to respond.
