Syrian government forces in the western city of Latakia, Syria, on March 9, 2025.
(Beirut) – Demonstrations demanding accountability for Assad-era crimes in Syria have coincided with a rise in vigilante attacks and identity-based incitement between June 13 and 17, 2026, Human Rights Watch said today.
The protests spread across Aleppo, Idlib, Deir Ezzor, Raqqa, and Damascus governorates. Syrian authorities should ensure that security forces protect people accused of ties to the former government from mob justice.
“Massacres and killings targeting Syrian religious minority groups throughout 2025 show how quickly targeting individuals turns into collective punishment of entire communities,” said Hiba Zayadin, senior Syria researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Syrians have every right to demand justice, but justice should never become a pretext for targeting people simply because of their religion or background. Syrian authorities need to draw that line clearly,”
On June 16, dozens of protesters in Damascus entered or attempted to enter the Mazzeh 86 and Ush al-Warwar neighborhoods, both of which are majority Alawi. Local media outlets reported property damage and injuries in Mazzeh 86, while security forces sealed off Ush al-Warwar to keep outside protesters from entering.
A shopkeeper in Mazzeh 86, who asked not to be identified out of fear for his safety, told Human Rights Watch that several men in civilian clothes, their faces covered by keffiyehs, attacked his store on the evening of June 16. He said he recognized some of the men from repeated prior encounters in the neighborhood, during which they had stopped, cursed, and beaten residents accused of being Alawi.
“They didn’t leave anything whole,” he said. The men broke the store’s glass containers, damaged its windows, tore down the curtains, and fired gunshots inside that did not hit him, he said, all
