Syria Interior Ministry Sets Rules Licensing Peaceful Protests, Authorizes Security Forces To Disperse

Syria’s Interior Ministry has issued new regulations governing the licensing of peaceful demonstrations, setting out procedures for organizers, responsibilities of authorities, and penalties for violations.

“The Syrian authorities set conditions for organizing demonstrations that ensure the preservation of public security and the protection of lives, according to the Interior Ministry”

Al-Jazeera Net

The rules were announced in Damascus on May 4, according to SANA, and they are framed as reaffirming “the right to peaceful assembly” while ensuring “public order, safety and the protection of public and private property.”

Al-Jazeera Net

Under the new rules, organizers must form a committee of at least three members to submit a permit request to the relevant governorate, and applications are to be referred within 24 hours to a designated committee.

That committee must issue a decision within five days, and “A lack of response within that period will be considered approval,” SANA reported.

If a request is rejected, the decision must be justified, and organizers may appeal before the administrative court, which is required to issue a final ruling within one week.

The regulations also prohibit participants from carrying weapons, whether licensed or not, and define sharp, piercing or blunt objects as weapons under the law.

Authorities may request organizers to end a demonstration if it violates permit conditions or disrupts public order, and “If necessary, security forces may disperse the gathering,” SANA said.

The Interior Ministry further said demonstrations held without permits or in violation of approved conditions will be considered illegal and subject to penalties under the penal code.

A separate report from Daily Beirut described the same Interior Ministry circular as a mechanism for regulating and licensing demonstrations “within approved legal frameworks,” aiming to balance “the right to demonstrate” with “maintaining public security and citizen safety.”

Daily Beirut said those wishing to organize a demonstration must form an organizing committee comprising a president and at least two members, and the license application must be submitted to the relevant governorate.

Daily Beirut

The governorate then refers the application within a maximum period of 24 hours to the competent committee for consideration, and the committee decides on the application within five days from the date of its receipt.

Like SANA, Daily Beirut reported that if no response is provided within the specified period, it is considered “implicit approval to organize the demonstration.”

It also stated that applicants have the right to appeal the rejection decision before the Administrative Judiciary Court within a week from the date of notification.

Daily Beirut further said competent authorities are responsible for providing the necessary protection for licensed demonstrations, while the organizing committee is committed to maintaining public order and preventing practices, slogans, or actions that exceed the scope of the license or violate laws.

The circular, Daily Beirut added, grants the Ministry of Interior the right to request the termination of a demonstration if it exceeds the license limits or if it witnesses riots, crimes, or any disruption to public security and order.

Al-Jazeera Net similarly described the Interior Ministry’s position that the right to protest and peaceful assembly is protected under the Constitutional Declaration, while requiring it to be carried out in accordance with legal conditions and mechanisms.

Al-Jazeera Net reported that an official who asked not to be named told AFP that the decision “has raised concerns about restrictions on freedoms,” but that it is “purely regulatory in nature and aims to protect protesters for fear of harming them,” adding that it “does not restrict freedoms but regulates them.”

“After the December fall of Bashar Al-Assad's regime, responsible for several hundred thousand deaths during the civil war that began in 2011, it is now the community of the ousted president, the Alawites – a branch of Islam close to Shiism but not directly part of it – that is the target of massacres carried out by Sunni fighters close to the new Damascus regime, led by the former jihadist leader Ahmed Al-Charaa”

The Conversation

The same report said the Interior Ministry’s circular grants authorities the right to order the end of the protest if it exceeded the limits of the license granted to it, or if riots occurred, or criminal acts, or practices that disrupt public order, or impede the authorities from performing their duties, or if it is difficult to prevent those acts or stop them.

Al-Jazeera Net also described the circular as “the first detailed official measure announced by the new Syrian authorities to regulate demonstrations since the overthrow of the rule of the ousted President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024,” and it placed the measure in a context of an unstable security situation.

The report said Syrian human rights lawyer Michel Shamas, “via his Facebook page today, Monday,” argued that organizing a constitutional right “is not achieved through an administrative circular, but through a law issued by the legislative authority alone,” and that “the circular is illegal and violates the constitutional declaration.”

In the same Al-Jazeera Net account, it described limited gatherings by groups locally known as “the remnants,” met by demonstrations by regime supporters that ended in hand-to-hand clashes.

SANA’s framing emphasized that security authorities will provide protection for licensed demonstrations within legal limits, while organizers are responsible for maintaining order and complying with permit conditions.

Daily Beirut similarly said competent authorities are responsible for providing the necessary protection for licensed demonstrations, while the organizing committee is committed to maintaining public order and preventing practices, slogans, or actions that exceed the scope of the license or violate laws.

Taken together, the sources show the Interior Ministry’s circular as both a procedural framework and a contested instrument, with AFP-quoted justification on one side and Michel Shamas’s constitutional challenge on the other.

While the protest-licensing circular is presented as a regulatory step, The Conversation’s analysis places Syria’s post-regime-fall violence in a broader sectarian and security context, focusing on the Alawites and the “new spiral of violence.”

The Conversation says that after the December fall of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime, “it is now the community of the ousted president, the Alawites” that is “the target of massacres carried out by Sunni fighters close to the new Damascus regime, led by the former jihadist leader Ahmed Al-Charaa.”

سانا

It also states that Bashar Al-Assad’s regime was responsible for “several hundred thousand deaths during the civil war that began in 2011,” and it describes the Alawites as “a branch of Islam close to Shiism but not directly part of it.”

The Conversation’s Thomas Pierret, a Syria specialist (IREMAM-CNRS), says there is “no official census taking into account ethnic and confessional identity,” and he offers estimates that “before the war the Alawites represented between 7% and 12% of the roughly 20 million Syrians.”

Pierret argues that during the war, the Alawites’ share “has probably increased” due to refugees leaving Syria “mainly Sunnis,” and he also describes how the Alawites were “the overwhelming majority of the officers of the army and intelligence services of the old regime.”

He adds that at the fall there were “probably only one or two Sunnis among the forty top ranks of the Syrian army,” and that the Alawites were “very largely overrepresented” in elite units such as “the Republican Guard or the Fourth Armored Division.”

The Conversation then links early March violence to two dynamics: fighters of the old regime hiding with weapons in the coastal region “predominantly Alawite,” and “a multiplication of local communal violence” in western parts of Hama and Homs.

It says violence intensified on March 6 when “the fighters of the old regime launched coordinated attacks in coastal towns, killing several hundred members of the security forces and civilians,” and it notes reinforcements were sent by the Directorate of Military Operations, which coordinates armed factions that participated in the offensive against the old regime in November and December.

The sources portray the Interior Ministry’s licensing framework as part of a wider effort to regulate public gatherings while maintaining stability, but they also show that Syria’s security environment remains volatile.

“The Syrian authorities set conditions for organizing demonstrations that ensure the preservation of public security and the protection of lives, according to the Interior Ministry”

Al-Jazeera Net

SANA said the announcement comes “as part of broader efforts to regulate public gatherings while maintaining stability and safeguarding civil rights,” and it laid out enforcement tools including the ability to request termination of demonstrations and, if necessary, disperse gatherings.

Al-Jazeera Net

Al-Jazeera Net described the circular as the first detailed official measure since the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, and it tied the move to calls for arrest and trial of officers and released personnel who participated in the crackdown under the ousted regime.

It also described how areas of Syria have seen limited gatherings by “the remnants,” met by demonstrations by regime supporters that ended in hand-to-hand clashes, indicating that the licensing rules are being introduced into an environment where demonstrations can quickly escalate.

The Conversation’s Thomas Pierret described how violence after Assad’s fall involved skirmishes by several thousand fighters of the old regime hiding with weapons in the coastal region “predominantly Alawite,” and he said these were “ambushes against security forces.”

He described counter-insurgency operations “accompanied by abuses against civilians,” and he said communal violence intensified in Hama and Homs, with violence increasing on March 6 after coordinated attacks in coastal towns.

In that analysis, the Directorate of Military Operations sent reinforcements to the region, and it also noted “a spontaneous and disorderly mobilization of armed elements in support of the authorities” in other regions, notably Idlib.

Taken together, the Interior Ministry’s procedural steps for licensed demonstrations and the contested legal debate raised by Michel Shamas occur alongside an account of ongoing armed dynamics and sectarian targeting, with the circular’s enforcement provisions set against a backdrop of instability described across the sources.