For more than half a century, the Assad family brutalized the Syrian people. With the death of Hafez al-Assad in 2000, after thirty years of government corruption, suppressed freedoms, and economic repression, power was passed to his son, Bashar, where those issues were further exacerbated by twenty-four more years of terror.
As in other countries in the MENA (Middle East Northern Africa) region, the Arab Spring opened the people to the possibility of reform, and after seeing change in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt, hope for the same in Syria began to grow. However, Bashar al-Assad used his power to brutally suppress the people.
The amount of human suffering in Syria was compounded by more than a decade of forced displacement, indiscriminate attacks on civilians, chlorine barrel bombs, sarin gas attacks, unlawful imprisonment, besiegement, starvation, beatings, torture, extrajudicial killings, sexual abuse, mass executions, and forced disappearances. And all of this lies at Bashar al-Assad’s feet.
Bashar al-Assad had an opportunity to be a reformer — but he chose to destroy his country… his people… instead.
The fall of the Assad regime in December 2024 allowed the people of Syria a step toward freedom for the first time in more than five decades, but the cost was great. More than 600,000 people are dead, and 200,000 people are still missing and believed to have been disappeared. More than 14 million people are displaced, and at least 21 million people require humanitarian assistance.
Assad’s Syria by Lara Kajs increasingly engages the reader with a clear and impassioned account of the atrocities committed under Assad’s tyrannical rule, the human suffering experienced by millions, and the resilience of the Syrian people to survive.
From her first trip to Syria in 2012 to her last visit to the country in 2021, Kajs witnessed firsthand human rights abuses committed against the people of Syria, as well as the immense human suffering, including starving children, families displaced, as well as the questionable and often illegal practices of the Assad regime. Kajs served as part of a team that interviewed thousands of witnesses and survivors, and investigated suspected atrocity crimes. Assad’s Syria offers insights into how the country can heal and recover in a post-Assad world and addresses the issues of accountability and justice for the people.
For the people of Syria.
Assad’s Syria by Lara Kajs is available in E-book and Paperback at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, and Independent bookstores worldwide. Distributed by Ingram.
Book cover and feature photo taken by Lara Kajs during an airstrike in Homs, Syria, in 2012.