Syria’s civil society navigates post-Assad era: Partnership or control?

Damascus, Syria – For most of the war, Bahjat Hajjar worked outside the Syrian state. A co-founder of the Local Administration Councils Unit, he spent years between Turkiye and opposition-held northern Syria, supporting councils that ran bakeries, clinics and schools where no government existed.Today he sits inside the state, as deputy minister of social affairs and labour – the ministry that licenses Syria’s associations. “The relationship with civil society is one of the most important joints in the reshaping of the state itself,” he told Al Jazeera.More than a year and a half after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad on December 8, 2024, that relationship is still unsettled. Under the old system, Hajjar said regulation of civil society was effectively run by the intelligence service: “There was no minister who passed through this ministry without security intervention or approval.” Perhaps ten associations were licensed a year, sometimes fewer.After al-Assad’s fall – the culmination of the 13-year war – organisations that had operated from previously opposition-controlled areas and neighbouring countries were told to register in Damascus, and their numbers have risen steeply. ...