UN envoy lauds Syria’s prisoner amnesty’s “potential”

Geir Pedersen, UN Special Envoy, has hailed a broad amnesty aimed at releasing thousands of Syrians imprisoned on terrorism-related offenses.

During the country’s tragic 11-year war, President Bashar Assad has issued multiple amnesties, but the most recent in April was the most extensive connected to terrorist allegations since the conflict began, according to rights groups.

Pedersen told reporters in Damascus that he had been briefed “in quite some depth” on the latest move after meeting with the regime’s Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad.

“I am very much looking forward to being kept informed on the progress on the implementation for that amnesty,” Pedersen said before talks on a new constitution for Syria are to resume in Geneva.

“That amnesty has potential, and we are looking forward to seeing how it develops,” Pedersen said.

Hundreds of convicts have been released, according to the regime’s Justice Ministry, and a military spokesman, Ahmad Touzan, told local media this week that the amnesty will encompass thousands, including individuals who are wanted but not jailed.

Touzan declined to reveal the number of detainees released, claiming that “numbers change by the hour.”

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which depends on a broad network of informants within Syria, roughly 1,142 convicts have been freed around the nation as part of the amnesty, with hundreds more expected.

Syria’s warring parties will undertake the latest round of constitutional discussions in Switzerland in the coming days, as part of a process that began in 2019.

It is hoped the talks can pave the way toward a broader political process.

Pedersen said he is “hopeful that this will be a positive meeting that can help bring us forward so that we can start to see… some confidence-building measures,” Pedersen said.

Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011 after the violent repression of protests demanding regime change.

The war has left around half a million people dead and displaced millions.

Throughout the war, the UN has been striving to nurture a political resolution.

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