Click to expand Image Syrian government forces in the western city of Latakia, Syria, on March 9, 2025. © 2025 OMAR HAJ KADOUR/AFP via Getty Images (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 while beating him with stun batons, stabbing him, and hurling sectarian insults.He estimated the damage to his shop at around US$1,000. He said men he believed to be the same group later returned and took him to al-Mouwasat Hospital for treatment. Human Rights Watch reviewed photographs consistent with his account of physical harm, showing a black eye, a stitched stab wound on his arm, and bruising on his back and arms.A female resident of Mazzeh 86, who also asked not to be identified, said that on that same night, a crowd of 300 to 400 people gathered at the bottom of the hill leading into the neighborhood, blocking her from entering through the main entrance by a General Security checkpoint. She entered another way and saw masked men and security personnel walking the streets. She said the masked men stopped her but let her pass once they saw she was a woman.In Ush al-Warwar, Human Rights Watch geolocated and verified two videos posted to social media on June 15 between 10:30 and 11 p.m. They show crowds chanting vulgar anti-Alawi slurs on the main road leading to the neighborhood entrance, which had been blocked off by the Interior Ministry’s Road Security Directorate. Additional videos from the same location show security forces present as a crowd gathered.In Salqin, Idlib, media reports stated that unidentified attackers had vandalized businesses owned by people accused of being supporters of the former government. Agence France-Presse reported threats circulating online against alleged former pro-Assad paramilitary fighters in Latakia. Human Rights Watch also reviewed videos documenting mob violence against two men accused of ties to the former government. Multiple geolocated videos show an older man, identified as Shukri Kayali, accused of being a former pro-government paramilitary fighter, bloodied and partially stripped, being dragged through the streets of Kafr Takharim, Idlib, then left at the base of a local clock tower. Media reports said Kayali died following the attack. A separate video, published on social media around 2:30 a.m. on June 15, purports to show the body of a man identified as Fadi Rabou, also accused of being a former paramilitary fighter, with men in the crowd shouting “Allahu Akbar.” Multiple social media accounts reported that the killing occurred in the al-Sheikh Talat neighborhood of Idlib city. Human Rights Watch could not independently geolocate the footage nor confirm either man’s death from the video footage alone.Syrian authorities deployed security forces to some flashpoints as the unrest spread, including blocking access to Ush al-Warwar, and the protests have since subsided. But the underlying tensions that drove people into the streets remain unresolved, Human Rights Watch said. The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria has identified the absence of a clear legal framework for justice as one of the drivers of continuing violence in the country, a gap that Syrian authorities have acknowledged. Syria’s National Commission for Transitional Justice said on June 15 that collective punishment is incompatible with justice, while the interior ministry said the same day it is holding nearly 6,000 Assad-era military and security personnel and urged citizens to submit evidence through official channels instead of acting on their own.The authorities should urgently investigate those who carried out violent attacks in June, ensure that detainees are held in safe, lawful custody, and make protective deployments the standard response the next time tensions rise. These attacks also underscore the urgency of strengthening and building public confidence in independent justice processes to address Assad-era crimes and other serious international crimes committed in Syria. The authorities should put in place comprehensive legislative reforms to enable effective prosecution while ensuring compliance with international human rights and fair trial standards, Human Rights Watch said. They should also actively protect civic space and include Syrian civil society and victims’ groups in justice processes. This includes clarifying the authorities’ strategy, timeline, and modalities for nationwide consultations and providing meaningful space for civil society involvement in the development and functioning of institutions, including the National Commission for Transitional Justice.“The longer revenge gets mistaken for justice, the more people get hurt and the harder it becomes for any accountability process to succeed,” Zayadin said.