Press release
Syrian Opposition Coalition – Syria
Department of Media and Communications
September 06, 2020
In continuation and consolidation of the policies aimed at getting rid of the largest number of the Syrian people; emptying the country of its population and repopulating it with foreigners, especially Iranian militants; and in implementation of the theory of sectarian homogeneity Assad proposed years ago, the Assad regime’s new cabinet began its tenure with a decision preventing the return of displaced Syrians to their homeland.
The decree is also part of the Assad regime’s attempts to export its crises to neighboring countries and beyond and exert pressure on the international community to reaccept it into its fold.
In addition to mass killings, besiegement, starvation, mass forced displacement, and the destruction of homes, these laws plays into the Assad regime’s plans for demographic engineering. These laws and decrees include the infamous anti-terrorism law targeting political dissidents, the laws to confiscate the property of displaced people and refugees, and most recently the regime’s decision requiring Syrians entering their own country to exchange $100 or other approved foreign currencies to the local currency at the official rate.
The latest decision is a new tactic in a series of tactics the Assad regime is using to blackmail the Syrian people and a new aspect of the rampant corruption that the regime lives off. The move also reflects the Assad regime’s desperation for hard currency to fund its military operations and pay its shabiha and foreign sectarian militias.
As long as the regime remains in power, it will commit more of these violations and ramp up pressure on the Syrian people, the international community, and the countries hosting Syrian refugees. This creates the need to exert real pressure on the Assad regime to force it to stop these policies and engage in a political solution in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions and the Geneva Communique of 2012.
