The Aleppo courthouse, June 11, 2025, a few hours before the lawyers' sit-in. (Credit: Caroline Hayek/L’Orient-Le Jour)
At the wheel of his battered old car on Aleppo’s dusty streets, Mahmoud is fuming. “Gallows, that’s what we need! Right there, in Saadallah al-Jabiri Square!” said the man in his sixties, pointing toward the esplanade next to the city’s main public garden.Anger has been sweeping across the country since June 9, when Hassan Soufan, a member of the Committee for Civil Peace, announced at a press conference in Damascus the release of several detainees linked to the former regime, including Fadi Sakr. The former head of the “National Defense Forces” militia was implicated in the massacre of at least 41 civilians in Tadamon on April 13, 2013, and has been under U.S. and then European sanctions since 2020.More than 600,000 people were killed during the war, while tens of thousands were tortured and imprisoned. Thousands more remain...
At the wheel of his battered old car on Aleppo’s dusty streets, Mahmoud is fuming. “Gallows, that’s what we need! Right there, in Saadallah al-Jabiri Square!” said the man in his sixties, pointing toward the esplanade next to the city’s main public garden.Anger has been sweeping across the country since June 9, when Hassan Soufan, a member of the Committee for Civil Peace, announced at a press conference in Damascus the release of several detainees linked to the former regime, including Fadi Sakr. The former head of the “National Defense Forces” militia was implicated in the massacre of at least 41 civilians in Tadamon on April 13, 2013, and has been under U.S. and then European sanctions since 2020.More than 600,000 people were killed during the war, while tens of thousands were tortured and imprisoned. Thousands more...
