Syria: Free Suleiman Khalil!

On February 8, 2025, Suleiman Khalil, the former mayor of the Christian town of Sadad, who heroically defended his town against ISIS in 2015, was arrested at his home by agents of the new Syrian regime. CSI is calling for his immediate release.

Suleiman Khalil, a Syriac Orthodox Christian engineer, businessman and former mayor of Sadad, a Christian town near Homs, was arrested on February 8, 2025. Armed security officials from Syria’s transitional government presented an arrest warrant issued by a special prosecutor. They searched him and his home in vain for weapons. Suleiman was initially incarcerated in the Military Security section of a prison in Homs. He was subsequently transferred to Homs Central Prison and has recently been transferred to an interrogation prison in Homs. Neither his family nor his lawyer have been given permission to see him or otherwise communicate with him.

Suleiman is married. He and his wife Eva have two daughters, Natalie and Stephanie.

Suleiman was elected Mayor of Sadad in 2012 as the “Arab Spring” uprising unleashed a wave of public opposition to Syria’s dictatorial government, headed by Bashar al-Assad and his Baath Party. As a member of the Syrian Social National Party (SSNP), Suleiman was well known as an opponent of the ruling party.  As mayor, Suleiman coordinated local civilians in defense of Sadad when it was attacked by the Islamic State in 2015.

His heroism when Sadad was under assault by the Islamic State greatly enhanced his local popularity. Seeing him as a threat, the ruling Baathist party engineered his removal from office the following year.

The arrest and unlawful detention of Suleiman comes in the context of the overthrow of the Assad-led government and the seizure of power by a new regime. It has enshrined  religiously discriminatory Sharia law in the constitution. Its security forces have murdered thousands of Alawites and Druzes in massacres in Latakia, Tartus, Hama, Suwayda, the Damascus suburbs, and other regions; arbitrary arrests and detentions are commonplace. The political and military leadership of the transitional government includes individuals who committed crimes against civilians in Iraq and Syria as members of al-Qaeda ­­ a UN Security Council-sanctioned terrorist organization.

Since Suleiman’s detention, the United States and its allies have suspended most of their sanctions on these individuals and pledged billions for Syria’s transition process. To date there are no visible signs of western governments working purposefully for the release of Suleiman. If action is being taken behind the scenes, it is being rebuffed by the new government.

The liberation of Suleiman Khalil from captivity is a litmus test for the human rights credibility of the EU’s and other western governments’ partnership with Syria’s new government.