A delegation of Syrian minorities participated in a press conference in Geneva on September 9, 2025: Joseph Lahdo (left), Masoud Aqil, Sheruan Hassan, Rawan Osman, Nawras Alsaghbini, Mimi Hassan, and Mouna Ghanem. csi
The press conference, entitled “Massacre, Displacement, and Silence: The Struggle of Minorities in Syria,” was organized by the Geneva Press Club on the sidelines of the 60th session of the UN Human Rights Council. For more than two hours, religious figures, political representatives, and activists from Syria reported on massacres, kidnappings, forced expulsions, and the eradication of their peoples’ cultures.
The Geneva event sought to push these stories back into international view. Moderator Masoud Aqil, a Kurdish journalist who spent 280 days in ISIS captivity, said in his opening remarks: “We are here to ensure that the voices of Syria’s minorities are not silenced.”
“A cycle of despair”
Rawan Osman, the Damascus-born activist who led the delegation to Geneva, urged international leaders to act to protect Syria’s diversity.
Trying to weigh the suffering caused by Syria’s former dictator, Bashar al-Assad, versus current President Ahmed al-Sharaa (al-Jolani) misses how “they are partners in a cycle of despair,” Osman argued. Assad fled the country on December 8, 2024, when al-Jolani and his followers conquered Damascus.
“Let me remind you: It is because of Assad that men like al-Jolani exist,” said Osman. “It is Assad’s prisons, his torture chambers, his massacres that bred a generation of broken men ready to be recruited by jihadists.”
The explicitly Islamist government that al-Sharaa is building “offers no future for Syria’s minorities, no protection for non-Muslims, no space for diversity,” said Osman.
Ideology establishes hierarchy
The current dangers for minorities in Syria tie directly to the religious beliefs on which its new government is founded, emphasized Dr. Mouna Ghanem, the spokeswoman of the Supreme Alawite Council.
“This Islamic governance is predicated on divine authority, with Muslims acting as the representatives of God,” she said. “In contrast, non-Muslims such as Jews and Christians are frequently regarded as second-class citizens subject to discrimination and marginalization, while other non-believers according to the Islamic standards such as Druze and Alawites may face severe consequences including the threat of death.”
Ghanem outlined the human rights violations committed against the Alawite community since al-Jolani and HTS took control in December, in particular the March massacres and the abduction of Alawite women.
Syriac Union Party makes appeal
Joseph Lahdo, the head of the Europe branch of the Syriac Union Party, a Christian political party allied to the Kurdish PYD movement in northeast Syria, outlined what he sees as the dangers and hopes of Syria’s Christians.
He described life under the new regime led by Ahmed al-Sharaa (al-Jolani), whose Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) organization now dominates the Syrian state. “With HTS, it is no longer just about marginalization or restrictions – our lives and security have become the target of direct attacks,” Lahdo said. He cited the suicide bombing of Damascus’s Mar Elias Church that “claimed dozens of innocent worshippers’ lives – entire families were wiped out,” and the Suwayda massacres where “about 50 Christians” died in violence he described as resembling “ethnic cleansing.”
“Churches and monasteries were not spared from destruction and burning in more than seven locations in Suwayda province,” along with widespread “taxes and financial amounts imposed to pressure Christian communities.” Christian women faced particular hardships, with “restrictions imposed on their movement and dress” and “forced dismissal from workplaces in universities, sometimes solely because of religious affiliation.” These violations, he said, “made daily life for Christians in those areas very difficult.”
Even where freedoms exist on paper, Christians suffer from “weak economic resources, lack of adequate international support, continuous threats from extremist groups, and Turkish military operations.” He outlined common problems across all regions: “political marginalization and absence of real representation in governing institutions,” “demographic hemorrhaging due to widespread migration threatening our historical presence in our land,” and the economic crisis.
According to Lahdo , in contrast, in the Kurdish-administered northeast, Christians have carved out a fragile space. There, Christians “were able to establish their own political, cultural, and security institutions” including “the Syriac Military Council and the Sutoro special security forces.” Syriac schools have reopened, he said, and for the first time in decades the ancient language is being taught openly.
Lahdo concluded by sharing his vision for Syria: “a federal, decentralized Syria that guarantees minority rights.” His recommendations included: adopting a federal system, constitutional recognition of the Syriac language, support for Christian institutions, economic development for Christian areas, guaranteed political representation, protection of religious sites, and international support for democratic transition. “We do not ask for privileges,” he declared. “We demand our right to life, dignity, and participation, not to be pushed toward migration and extinction.”
Atrocities in Suwayda
Sheruan Hassan, a diplomatic adviser to the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, turned his focus outward, stressing the global consequences of leaving Syria to collapse. “Leaving Syria under the control of jihadists will not only destroy what remains of society,” he warned, “but turn the country into a worldwide platform for terrorism, with Europe as the first target.” For the Kurds, who endured years of fighting against ISIS, the threat of a renewed extremist wave is existential.
Perhaps the most harrowing testimony came from Nawras Alsaghbini, a human rights activist and content creator from the Druze-majority province of Suwayda. With visible anger, he described the massacres that shook his home region earlier this summer. “Within days, 789 civilians were executed, entire villages burned, and women raped,” he said. “This was not a local clash, it was organized ethnic cleansing. We demand an international investigation and real protection.” Alsaghbini accused both regime loyalists and extremist militias of instrumentalizing Druze areas, leaving civilians defenseless.
The Yazidi voice at the press conference was Mimi Hassan, the first Yazidi woman ever appointed to a religious leadership role. She reminded the world that the atrocities of ISIS are not merely history. “The wound of 2014 has not healed,” she said, recalling the massacre in Sinjar and the mass enslavement of Yazidi women and girls. Thousands remain missing to this day. “We want justice, accountability, and the right to live as Yazidis in Syria without fear of erasure.”
A shared appeal
The testemonies voiced a shared concern: Without international engagement, Syria’s minorities will face extinction. The Alawite, Druze, Christian, Kurdish, and Yazidi speakers all described the same pattern: targeted killings, forced displacement, arbitary arrests, destruction of cultural sites, and systematic efforts to erase their presence.
The setting of the press conference in Geneva, home to the UN Human Rights Council, was deliberate. By holding the event on the sidelines of high-level diplomacy, the Syrian minorities hoped to bring their concerns into UN debates.
