2/25/2025 Syria (International Christian Concern) — The European Union announced Monday that it would lift sanctions on Syria as reports continue to indicate that the rebel leaders now ruling Syria are doing so with respect for the various ethnic and religious minorities, including Christians, spread throughout the country.
“This decision,” the European Council explained in a press release, “is part of the EU’s efforts to support an inclusive political transition in Syria, and its swift economic recovery, reconstruction, and stabilisation [sic].”
The announcement was made as leaders from around Syria gathered in Damascus on Monday morning for a dialogue conference intended to lay out a basic framework for the country’s new governing order.
The EU sanctions being lifted were initially imposed as part of a global effort to pressure and restrict the Bashar al-Assad regime, which ruled from 2000 to December 2024, when al-Assad was overthrown in a swift rebel offensive.
A Country in Transition
The leader of the rebel offensive, Ahmad al-Sharaa, declared himself president and suspended the constitution in January. Monday’s dialogue conference includes representation from many parts of the country, with the Kurdish-led autonomous area in the northeast and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces notable excluded from the conversation.
Reports do indicate, however, that members of the Christian and Druze communities were invited to participate, with one Christian appearing on the seven-member preparatory committee that planned the event. Still, al-Sharaa and his militant group HTS appear to be dominating the discussion and whether the group’s conclusions will experience widespread acceptance remains to be seen.
While al-Sharaa has promised respect minority rights and lead Syria inclusively, many challenges remain in a country wracked by decades of government-encouraged division between various ethnic and religious groups.
Hopeful Signs
Al-Sharaa met with Christian leaders in December 2024 following several attacks against Christian places of worship and Christian symbols. The meeting, which was publicized by the state-run news agency Sana, was widely seen as a sign of inclusion and an implicit statement of support for a community that has long been attacked and marginalized in Syria, including by groups affiliated with HTS.
Media reports indicate that religious minorities have begun gathering publicly, slowly growing comfortable in a regime that has, so far, proved relatively effective in protecting them from extremist elements and has gone neighborhood to neighborhood promising to protect religious freedom.
The Wall Street Journal, in a January article, reports that churches and bars are crowded in Christian areas of Damascus. With alcohol forbidden under strict Islamic teaching, that public bars are thriving represents a culturally noticeable expression of religious freedom. Shia Muslims, a small minority in the Sunni-majority country, have reportedly begun gathering by the thousands at Sayeda Zeinab mosque, an important Shiite religious site.
Questions Remain
Despite the outward signs of progress, some remain concerned that today’s relative freedom could be short lived. “This may be the calm in the eye of the storm,” a Damascus-based priest told the Wall Street Journal.
Of particular concern to Christians and other minorities is the question of whether their rights will be enshrined in the upcoming constitution. While a finalized version of that document will likely take years to complete, early drafts — and events such as Monday’s dialogue conference — will provide watchers with early signs of the country’s long-term direction.
In Januray, the al-Sharaa administration announced changes to the national curriculum that seemed to move toward a more fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.
“After reviewing the amendments,” said Syrian journalist Hussam Hammoud on X, “it’s clear that, aside from removing signs of the criminal Assad regime, the remaining changes have a distinct religious tone.”
Others, pointing out that most of the amendments have yet to be implemented, suggest that the proposals may be more benign.
Among the changes proposed is an update to the phrase “those who have are damned and have gone astray” to instead read “Jews and Christians.” Other updates include language around Islamic morality and the definition of martyrdom, from a nationalist definition created by the previous dictatorship to a religious one.
While online commentators and the media quickly criticized the new religious language, the Ministry of Education downplayed the changes as updates to “misinterpreted” verses of the Quran.
Though it remains to be seen which of these proposals will be implemented, the announcement was a shift in messaging from the acting government which has, up to now, worked assiduously to project an image of nationalist rather than Islamist fervor.
Inconsistent Messaging
While al-Sharaa has made many statements extolling the virtues of religious tolerance and has engaged in concrete steps to ensure their safety, he is still an avowed proponent of the Salafi-jihadist ideology and has much deeper roots as a persecutor of religion than a promoter of its free practice.
“Diversity is our strength, not a weakness,” al-Sharaa declared in an edict upon capturing Aleppo en route to Damascus. Still, HTS-aligned fighters reportedly went door to door in Damascus asking residents to identify their faith, suggesting that religion may continue to act as a point of tension.
Part of the inconsistent messaging may lie in the fact that al-Sharaa and HTS have always been primarily focused on opposing the Assad regime, rather than clearly establishing its own positive vision for the country.
As the international community watches to see what type of government will replace the Assad regime, hundreds of thousands of religious minorities in Syria are watching too. For them, the new government’s respect for religious freedom is an intensely personal unknown.
Should al-Sharaa continue to signal support for the rights Christians and others, that would be a fundamental shift for the better. But that outcome is far from guaranteed, and a reversion to his old ways when he worked with the Islamic State group (ISIS) and al-Qaida would be disastrous for these already-vulnerable communities that suffered so much under Assad.
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