Al-Assad Faces Death, But Sleeps Safely In Russia. What Syrians Think

“Ejak el door, ya doctor” -- It's your turn, doctor.

The doctor's turn has arrived, but he is not in Damascus but in exile as an honoured guest of Vladimir Putin in Russia. 
In early 2011, a group of teenagers in the southern Syrian city of Daraa painted anti-government graffiti on a school wall. The boys were arrested and tortured. Their detention became a catalyst for protests against Bashar al-Assad's government, and those protests were met with a crackdown that spiralled into a civil war.

Fifteen years later,  the doctor -- al-Assad -- has now been sentenced to death by a Syrian court.

On Tuesday, a court in Damascus sentenced the ousted president and his brother, Maher al-Assad, in absentia for murder, torture and crimes against humanity committed before and during Syria's 14-year civil war that  left about half a million people dead.

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The judgments are the first against  al-Assad or members of his inner circle since five decades of Assad family rule ended 20 months ago. But they come with an obvious limitation.

Al-Assad and his brother are not in Syria.

They fled to Russia after the dramatic collapse of their government in December 2024 and were granted asylum there. Unless they are returned to Syria, the death sentences remain, for now, judgments without prisoners.

For Abdo Fayyad, noted Syrian journalist and filmmaker who lived through the Assad years said the sentence brought a feeling that had been delayed for a long time.

“Bashar al-Assad and his regime has been always the enemy of Syrian, so when I see that he is sentenced to death I feel relief and happy that justice no matter how long it takes finally it will prevail,” Fayyad told NDTV.  “The main thing that no one will understand that we had no freedom we were all sentenced to suffering and fear under his rule.”

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“We always hide our opinions and we hide our achievements as well because all of those were considered a threat to thier rule: We have a saying that explains this ‘, don't say anything because the walls have ears', which means you never know who is listening because if you said something wrong, you may end up in prison dead,” he added. 

Fayyad's own family paid a price under al-Assad's rule. His own brother, also a filmmaker, was imprisoned. 

A Syrian carries the picture of his relative, who was killed during the country's civil war, while celebrating after the court proceedings, in Damascus.
Photo Credit: AFP

“My brother was arrested and when he came out of prsion he was so thin so mentally sick that we almost didn't recognise him. He ofcurse escaped the country. He get out because we paid a lot of money and we did a lot of advocacy for him, his lawyer is missing until now,” he told NDTV. 

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Besides al-Assad and his brother, Damascus court also sentenced six other former officials to death in absentia. The only former official given the death sentence while in custody is Atef Najib, Assad's maternal cousin and the former security official whose name is closely tied to the events that began in Daraa in 2011.

“It is the start of justice for Syrians but there is a lot to go as he is still outside the country and the sentence cannot proceed without getting him back to Syria. But usually justice needs time, and we have an established justice system and we trust that in the end everyone will be accountable for what they did,” Fayyad told NDTV. 

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The collapse of the Assad government brought scenes that would once have seemed unimaginable. Prison doors opened. Families searched for relatives who had disappeared years earlier. Syrians who had lived abroad returned to cities they had not seen for years. But the removal of one government has not erased the habits, fears or wounds accumulated over decades.

A defaced portrait of Syria's ousted president Bashar al-Assad hangs on a wall in the capital Damascus.
Photo Credit: AFP

“A lot of things have changed. Now I can visit all the cities of Syria, I can just drive without being scared and also to some extent I can express what I want and what I feel. I am not afraid any more to end up in prison,” Fayyad said. 

For many Syrians, the freedom to travel or speak without the same immediate fear of arrest has become one of the most visible markers of the new era. Yet Syria's transition has also produced new anxieties.

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The new administration has intensified efforts to find and arrest figures associated with the former regime. Supporters see this as necessary accountability. Critics fear that the pursuit of justice could, in some cases, become retribution.

Bullet holes deface a mural depicting the toppled Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in Adra town on the northeastern outskirts of Damascus.
Photo Credit: AFP

Some people benefited from the old system. Others fear the uncertainty of what replaced it. And for those who spent decades living under a government built around control and surveillance, sudden change can itself be frightening.

“There are a lot of people who are misled and are scared and others benefited from his regime and that's the only reason for people to favour something from the ‘criminal era'. Also, Syrians need to adjust to the new Syria as they were living in fear for over 40 years. Sudden big changes scare people. For example I have been living under bombardment for over ten years, it took me alot to not get scared when I hear a plane in the sky,” Fayyad said. 

The question confronting Syria now is whether the country that emerges after al-Assad can avoid reproducing the same cycles of fear, repression and sectarian violence. That concern has become particularly acute among members of Syria's minority communities.

This aerial view shows the remains of a destroyed monument to Syria's late president Hafez al-Assad, father of ousted president Bashar al-Assad who died in 2000, in Deir Attiyah in the countryside of Damascus on December 28, 2024.
Photo Credit: AFP

Ali Koshmr, a 36-year-old from Latakia, around 330 km from Damascus, revealed to NDTV in 2025 how he woke up to gunfire, screeching tyres and armed men shouting, “Come out, you Alawite pigs, Nusayris!”
The term Nusayri refers to followers of Ibn Nusayr, a revered figure among Syria's Alawites, the same community as of the Assads. The community accounts for around 12 per cent of Syria's population and is concentrated largely in the Latakia and Tartus regions.

Sunni Muslims make up roughly 70-75 per cent of the population.

After the fall of Assad, members of the community have faced violence, home invasions and displacement amid campaigns directed at what armed groups have described as remnants of the old regime.

“Armed men entered the village and reached our house, shouting, 'Come out, you Alawite pigs, Nusayris,'” Koshmr told NDTV last year. “They broke down the doors and started beating us with weapons, firing bullets randomly. They took my brother, and we have no idea what happened to him. They are exterminating us.”

“I was bleeding until the following night when we finally managed to get a vehicle to transport me to the hospital. My condition is stable now,” he had said.

According to Fayyad, the most important task is simpler and more difficult at the same time -- Syria must not allow the old era to return in another form.

“I wish nothing to be repated from that era. It is a chapter that needs to be closed by justice and holding Assad and his regime accountable for what they have done,” Fayyad concluded.