“Civil Society Spotlight” is a series aiming at highlighting and contextualising the voices of Syrian civil society organizations, activists, journalists, and people who advocate for positive solutions, human rights, democratic values, and social justice.
On 8 August 2025, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) held a conference titled ‘Unity of Position for the Components of North and East Syria’ in the city of Hasakah. More than 400 figures from the various communities of the region joined the conference, including the spiritual leader of the Druze community, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, and the head of the Supreme Alawite Islamic Religious Council in Syria and the Diaspora, Sheikh Ghazal Ghazal.
The conference was organised under the slogan ‘Together for diversity that strengthens our unity. Our partnership builds our future’. Its final statement called ‘for building a free and democratic Syria, the need to draft a constitution that guarantees rights and freedoms and establishes a decentralised state that ensures real participation of all Syrian components in managing the country, launching an effective transitional justice process, and convening an inclusive Syrian national conference to reach a comprehensive national project’.
Beyond the resentment and rejection of the conference by the Syrian transitional authorities, especially after the participation of Sheikh al-Hijri and Sheikh Ghazal, two of its most prominent opponents today, civil society activists, journalists, and writers had mixed feelings about the conference. Supporters of the authority in Damascus were outraged by the conference, describing it as a ‘minority conference’ that reinforces the divide between Syrian components and questioning how clerics can call for the establishment of a secular and democratic state. Others saw it as a result of Damascus' policies of monopolising power.
The conference came amid a tense and explosive context, especially after the violent incidents that affected the Alawite minorities in the Coast in March and the Druze in Sweida in July 2025. It also coincided with the difficult humanitarian situation in Sweida, which exacerbated the intensity of some positions and opinions.
Weak civil society engagement with the conference
Overall, the number of declared positions from civil society organisations at the conference was limited. Among many Syrian civil society organisations, especially those active in the north-east of the country or Kurdish organisations, a supportive position emerged from the Geostrategic Organisation for Studies and Kurdish Civil Society. In a video message addressed to Damascus, they stressed that the only path to a solution lies in adopting the results of the conference. Civil demonstrations were organised in several German cities in support of the conference.
The Human Rights Organisation in Syria (MAF) also welcomed the conference, describing it as an essential step toward building a ‘democratic, pluralistic and participatory Syria.’ It claimed to have brought together the various Syrian components on the basis of partnership and equality, in the face of extremist proposals that only bring division and destruction.
Civil Society Spotlight: Episode V
22 July 2025
Despite the absence of official statements from most civil society organisations, a number of directors and activists expressed their positions through their personal social media accounts. Ferhad Ehme, director of the Civil Waves Organisation (Bil), wrote: ‘The best response to the Hasakah conference is for the transitional government to call for a comprehensive Syrian conference in Damascus, in the People's Palace, with the participation of all political forces and representatives of all components. It would end the fighting, aggression and radicalisation and open the way to building a just republic in which everyone can truly participate.’
Writer and activist Iyad Harira was among those in favour of the conference. ‘It attracted components from outside northern and eastern Syria,’ he commented, (and) proves the inability of al-Qaeda's authority to fulfil its minimum functions as an authority. In contrast, the SDF, despite all its issues and circumstances, was able to form the nucleus of a cross-regional consensus that can be built upon.’
‘I cannot say with certainty that the Hasakah conference succeeded in overcoming the factionalism and exclusion practised by Ahmad al-Sharaa's authority’, Bassam al-Ahmad, Executive Director of the Syrians for Truth and Justice Organisation, said. ‘However, compared to the dialogue conference held by the representatives of the interim government, the Hasakah conference was more inclusive and diverse, including Arabs, Kurds, Alawites, Druze and others. No conference in Syria can claim to fully represent all components, but it is the right of all Syrian groups to meet and dialogue about the future of their country. This is a basic right guaranteed by international laws to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression.’
Speaking to Untold, he added: ‘I personally may not agree with the content of the conference or all of its contents, but there is no doubt that it seemed more inclusive: Dozens of conferences should have been held in various Syrian regions, not this formal conference, as if it were an achievement,’ he said, referring to the National Dialogue Conference held in Damascus on 24-25 February 2025.
‘The Hasakah conference came as an urgent need and an alternative space for Syrians to dialogue with each other,’ said Bassam al-Ahmad, a human rights defender. ‘But what is more important and dangerous are the attempts to intimidate people and demonize any initiative or dialogue outside the framework of the authority. This opens the door to legitimizing violations against them, as the previous regime did when it labelled all opponents as terrorists. If this exclusionary mentality continues, it will only lead to the reproduction of tyranny itself.’
“We want to be part of Syria’s future”
19 March 2025
‘The main issue is that the interim authority is acting as if it were a permanent authority,’ Al-Ahmad said, noting that it is adopting a dual discourse: ‘a flowery speech to the outside emphasising its acceptance and protection of diversity, matched on the ground by violations, exclusion and massacres, and a weak national dialogue conference that convinces no one.’
Journalist and activist Farah Youssef posed a question asking for people's opinions on the outcomes of the conference, and there was a great deal of support for what the conference offered, with one commenter writing: ‘I wish the outcomes of this statement had been the outcomes of the National Dialogue Conference seven months ago. That would have prevented the country from falling into this chaotic and bloody quagmire.’
Writer Anas Hamdoun wrote that ‘the Hasaka conference marks the actual beginning of the political phase in post-Assad Syria,’ stressing that the authorities and their supporters should deal with it within the political framework, away from the rhetoric of betrayal and suspicion.
The conference reopened a debate on the interpretation of ‘decentralisation’ and whether or not it is an appropriate solution to the Syrian situation, amid assurances that it does not mean separation or partition, as is commonly believed. In this context, writer and civil activist Khawla Barghouth reacted with an opinion far from the ‘stigmatising rhetoric’, stressing the need to respect the right of the other to difference and self-determination. She said that the discussion shows that there is an almost universal Syrian consensus on some clauses in the conference's final statement, while the main issue remains that of the ‘decentralised state’, explaining that this concept does not mean separation from the mother state.
(Radical) criticisms against the conference
Other opinions emerged that radically disagreed with the conference or its outcomes. They stressed the rejection of any party's monopoly on the right to hold dialogues and discussions about the future of the country. ‘The issue does not lie in the fact that Arabs, Kurds, Syriacs, and others meet to dialogue about the form of the state, but that there are those who seek to monopolize this right, confiscate the discussion, and portray any dialogue outside their authority as treason,’ said civil activist Rudi Othman, ‘This is the mentality that must be rejected by whoever owns it’.
Osman added: ‘I don't necessarily agree with everything in the final statement of the conference, but it is my right and the right of any Syrian to consider these demands, or part of them, as a natural step for discussion between the parts, instead of remaining silent and leaving the fate of the country in the hands of the warlords’.
A number of Jazira and Euphrates tribes issued a statement expressing their rejection of the al-Hasakeh conference, saying ‘the participants do not represent the Syrian tribes’.
Civil activist and director of the Arido Centre for Civil Society and Democracy, Gandhi Saado, was more cautious of excessive optimism, saying that ‘there are misconceptions always present in our discourses. One of them is ‘representing all the components’. This proposal reflects a clear lack of understanding and a high-level desire to monopolise the representation of a community by itself, as no political party is able to represent all the components’.
“Our struggle has been an unarmed, daily struggle”
27 March 2025
‘The conference did not include the participation of active political forces in the region, such as the Kurdish National Council and the Assyrian Democratic Organisation, and did not witness the participation of official tribal elders,’ Saado said. ‘The absence of civilian forces was also noticeable.’ Thus, this conference expresses the aspirations of the political forces participating in the Autonomous Administration and those in its orbit: it must reshape this factional situation according to political exclusions, as he described it.
‘The inclusion of controversial figures, such as Sheikhs al-Hijri and Ghazal, showed the conference as an alliance against other components, which appeared to antagonise the other, and this is a serious mistake, whether it was intended or not,’ Saado said.
Starting from the principle that the conference is ‘the best that is currently available’ opens the door to contradictory justifications, as the other side can say that it is the best. Therefore, it is necessary to keep aspiring for the best in line with the interests and aspirations of Syrians. ‘Celebration is usually justified when a qualitative achievement or tangible value is achieved,’ Saado said, ‘so did the conference add a new and impactful value?’
In a Facebook post, journalist Qasem el-Basri criticised the conference in a bitingly sarcastic tone, addressing the political nature of the ‘Autonomous Administration’, which he describes as a ‘one-party ruling authority’ that puts up formalities ‘to look democratic in front of the world’.
The text reads: ‘The necessary explanations for the new Syrian peoples who have just joined the club of brotherhood of peoples: Every administration has a joint presidency, Kurdish and Arab, because all the Kurdish presidents have a (herniated) disc in the back and need a joint Arab president to carry their bags.’
List of civil society organisations and key activists included in this article:
Gandhi Safar Saado, Arido Centre for Civil Society and Democracy
Bassam Alahmad, Executive Director of the Syrians for Truth and Justice Organisation
Ferhad Ehme, director of the Civil Waves Organisation (Bil)
Rudi Osman (Civil activist)
Qasem el-Basri (Journalist)
Khawla Bargouth (Writer and civil activist)
Anas Hamdoun (Writer)
Farah Youssef (Activist)
Iyad Harira (Writer and Activist)
Assyrian Democratic Organisation
Human Rights Organisation in Syria (MAF)
