THE Syrian President Bashar al-Assad announced today that are abolished, with immediate effect, the “campaign courts-martial”in which thousands of people were sentenced to death and summarily executed.

Assad’s decree repeals the 1968 law that established these courts, the presidency announced. “All cases handled by these military campaign courts will be referred (…) to regular military justice,” the statement posted on Telegram said, adding that this measure is effective immediately.

According to a 2017 Amnesty International report, the regulations and procedures followed by these courts were “so summary and arbitrary that they could not be considered a real judicial process”. Sometimes the accused appeared before these courts for only a few minutes.

THE Syrian lawyer Gazwan Kronfall he told the French Consulate that after the riots of the 1980s the powers of the military campaign courts were extended to civilians. These courts were not required to follow regular procedures, lawyers “played no role” and the sentences they imposed were final, that is, non-appealable. “During the years of revolution and war, many prisoners were sentenced to death and executed as soon as their sentence was confirmed,” he added.

The civil war in Syria broke out in 2011, with the repression, initially, of peaceful demonstrations by the Damascus regime.

“Thousands of people may have been executed based on the decisions of these courts,” Kronfall said.

A human rights activist, who asked not to be named, said the ruling was long overdue but “we should treat it with caution (…) especially because the regime has never admitted that these courts were violating the rights of prisoners.” ».

Diab Seriya, of the Union of Detainees and Missing Persons of Sednaya Prison, said that “if the detainees are referred to regular military courts” instead of the military campaign courts, “at least they will have the right to be represented by a lawyer.” He expressed hope that the records of these courts would be made public so that families could learn “the fate of their own people who have been missing for years.”