Back to the roots… justice from the heart of the field

The Annual Newsletter for 2025

Since its launch in 2012 as a civic platform seeking to empower civil society and contribute to the path of democratic transformation, DAWLATY has made transitional justice, human rights, and the consolidation of citizenship concepts the guiding framework for its institutional work. Over more than a decade, the organization has accumulated specialized expertise in capacity building, documenting collective memory, and promoting the values of nonviolence helping to solidify its presence as an influential actor in the Syrian human rights landscape.
In 2025, this journey reached a pivotal milestone with the official licensing of Dawlaty inside Syrian territory and the opening of its office in the capital, Damascus. This development marked a genuine return to the roots and created a strategic opportunity to connect the organization’s accumulated theoretical and knowledge-based capital with direct fieldwork and engagement with local communities across different regions, towns, and villages.
The year 2025 also saw a clear focus on integrating the perspectives of victims and survivors at the core of public work. Dawlaty implemented a series of national dialogues and specialized workshops that helped shift the voices of families of the missing and detainees from the sphere of individual suffering to the level of working papers and recommendations submitted to national and international actors and decision-makers. The organization also placed special emphasis on direct work with victims’ families, supporting their advocacy efforts for their rights to truth, justice, and redress.
In parallel, Dawlaty placed women’s issues at the heart of its priorities particularly their protection from violence and the strengthening of their participation in public and political life based on a firm conviction that transitional justice and democratic transformation cannot be complete without guaranteeing women’s rights and their active role in the public sphere.
During this year, Dawlaty expanded its alliances and partnerships with new local civil society organizations, and its network of relationships grew to include communities, villages, and towns that had not previously been within its scope of work. This enabled direct engagement with residents in their local environments, listening to their experiences, fears, and aspirations, and opening frank discussions on transitional justice and its legal, humanitarian, and social dimensions.

In the same context, Dawlaty continued to support its local partner organizations and succeeded in broadening this support to include new teams, initiatives, and organizations driven by its belief in the importance of collaborative work and strengthening local capacities as a key entry point for any sustainable path of change.
Dawlaty was also active across multiple spaces of support, networking, and advocacy with its civil society partners. These efforts focused on core issues including transitional justice, accountability and answerability, supporting the cause of abducted women and survivors of detention and kidnapping, protecting civic space, and advancing human rights.
Throughout this year, Dawlaty gave particular attention to transitional justice whether through the training programs it implemented or through specialized dialogue sessions and contributed to the preparation and publication of a set of research papers that addressed this field from multiple angles.
This report presents an overview of a year of continuous work and the strategic partnerships forged by Dawlaty as part of its ongoing endeavor to contribute to building a Syria that does not repeat its tragedies a Syria grounded in citizenship, justice, and the rule of law.
Dawlaty – December 2025