A Proposal to Commemorate this National Day within the Framework of Transitional Justice in Syria
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Damascus – The Syrian Network for Human Rights issued a report today calling for the adoption of the jasmine flower as a national symbol to commemorate national events within the context of transitional justice in Syria. The report, titled: Jasmine of Remembrance: March Eighteenth a Syrian National Day for Martyrs and Missing Persons: A Proposal to Commemorate this National Day within the Framework of Transitional Justice in Syria, the features of the Syrian humanitarian tragedy, and emphasizes the need to establish a national institutional framework for commemoration as an entry point for collective recognition and understanding of the loss.
The report proposes adopting the jasmine flower as a national symbol and designating March 18 as a day of remembrance for martyrs and the missing, drawing on international experiences that demonstrate how commemoration can be linked to transitional justice as a tool for symbolic reparation and the promotion of recognition and reconciliation. The proposal also includes symbolic rituals, such as the distribution of white jasmine and the observance of a national minute of silence, transforming the commemoration into an organized act of collective solidarity. Simultaneously, the report addresses potential challenges, such as selective memory and the need for a comprehensive national dialogue and concludes with recommendations directed to national and international stakeholders.
The report draws on the Syrian Network for Human Rights’ documentation of conflict violations, documentation that has been recognized by UN and international bodies. It also incorporates a comparative analysis of literature and experiences related to memorialization and truth commissions in post-conflict countries, aiming to frame the proposals within established institutional practices and recognized standards for building public memory.
The report highlights the staggering scale of the documented losses in Syria, where some 231,000 civilians were killed, including tens of thousands who died under torture, in addition to more than 177,000 forcibly disappeared persons and 13.8 million displaced individuals. These figures reflect profound human suffering that extended to families and communities, amidst previous official denial and widespread restrictions on public mourning. With the fall of the regime in December 2014, spontaneous community initiatives emerged to commemorate the loss, revealing the urgent need to acknowledge the tragedy. However, these efforts, while important, remain limited in their impact unless supported by a national institutional framework that organizes and sustains the act of remembrance. Therefore, adopting a national framework is essential for integrating victim recognition into the state structure and strengthening social solidarity.
The report affirms that commemoration is a cornerstone of transitional justice, serving as a tool for symbolic redress and fulfilling its associated functions of reconciliation, recognition, and civic education. The proposals are based on international standards related to victims’ rights to knowledge and redress, and on the experiences of truth commissions in South Africa, Ghana, and Peru, which highlighted the importance of memorials and organized rituals in establishing public memory. Comparative experiences, such as Remembrance Day in the United Kingdom, National Remembrance Day in Argentina, and Kwibuka Remembrance in Rwanda, show that institutional construction and established rituals promote sustainability and community engagement, and give symbols renewed moral force.
SNHR’s recommendations include establishing memorials, museums, and digital archives, and integrating the history of the Syrian revolution into educational curricula and human rights programs. The report emphasizes that moral redress, through recognition and commemorative events, complements but does not replace material compensation, and that combining the two is essential to addressing the conflict’s impact on individuals and society, and to ensuring that national memory remains present and influential in the long term.
The report affirms that commemoration is a cornerstone of transitional justice, serving as a tool for symbolic redress and fulfilling its associated functions of reconciliation, recognition, and civic education. The proposals are based on international standards related to victims’ rights to knowledge and redress, and on the experiences of truth commissions in South Africa, Ghana, and Peru, which highlighted the importance of memorials and organized rituals in establishing public memory. Comparative experiences, such as Remembrance Day in the United Kingdom, National Remembrance Day in Argentina, and Kwibuka Remembrance in Rwanda, show that institutional construction and established rituals promote sustainability and community engagement, and give symbols renewed moral force.
SNHR’s recommendations include establishing memorials, museums, and digital archives, and integrating the history of the Syrian revolution into educational curricula and human rights programs. The report emphasizes that moral redress, through recognition and commemorative events, complements but does not replace material compensation, and that combining the two is essential to addressing the conflict’s impact on individuals and society, and to ensuring that national memory remains present and influential in the long term.
The report indicates that jasmine can represent an authentic national symbol of remembrance in Syria, deeply rooted in culture and collective memory, carrying connotations of belonging, generosity, and simplicity, and possessing the power to evoke memory through everyday sensory experience. Furthermore, March 18, 2011, the date of the first martyrs of the Syrian revolution in Daraa, acquires moral and symbolic significance as a moment of sacrifice that transformed a local protest into a national revolution and secured a firm place in the public consciousness. The report proposes a commemorative framework that combines institutional and human dimensions, including a national minute of silence at noon and the distribution of white jasmine to the families of martyrs and the missing, thus transforming remembrance from an individual act into a collective act of solidarity. The proposal also includes placing jasmine at memorial sites, mass graves, and former detention centers, and integrating an educational component into schools to foster awareness among future generations about the responsibilities of remembering. This ritual aims to establish collective recognition within an institutional discourse, and to translate the promises of transitional justice and the search for truth into a tangible practice that enshrines symbolic justice, affirms the national commitment to the victims and their families, and ensures the sustainability of the memory of the revolution within a comprehensive national structure.
The report emphasizes that any national framework for commemorating the victims of the Syrian conflict will face numerous challenges related to its effectiveness and legitimacy. The most significant of these is the risk of selective memory, as commemoration could become a biased narrative tool if limited to victims from only one side, thus undermining its ability to contribute to reconciliation. Therefore, the report emphasizes that the Jasmine Memorial should honor all victims, regardless of the perpetrator’s identity, thus reinforcing the symbol’s neutrality and promoting comprehensive justice. The second challenge relates to timing and institutional sequencing. Commemoration efforts may lose much of their impact if investigations are completed, fates are determined, or mass graves are protected. Therefore, the memorial framework should evolve in parallel with the progress of transitional justice processes, while continuously affirming that the search for truth is an ongoing and unwavering commitment. The legitimacy of the symbol also hinges on adopting a participatory process and a comprehensive national dialogue that respects societal diversity and ensures the participation of various regions and religious and social backgrounds. While the jasmine symbol combines deep cultural roots with a connection to popular practices, it requires formal, consultative adoption to become a national institution that represents everyone and maintains the unity of its symbolic message without discrimination or bias.
The report concluded with recommendations directed to local and international bodies:
To the Syrian Transitional Government: Declare March 18 as a National Day for Martyrs and Missing Persons and adopt the jasmine as a national symbol through a consultative dialogue that includes the families of victims, civil society and religious leaders, with the adoption of a national minute of silence, and the allocation of resources for memorial infrastructure, including memorial sites, museums, documentation centers and digital archives.
To the National Transitional Justice Committee and the National Committee for the Missing: Integrate commemoration programs within the competencies of the two committees in a way that links them to truth-seeking, identification, and holding perpetrators accountable, and ensure that the commemoration is inclusive of all victims regardless of the identity of the perpetrator, in order to achieve the function of comprehensive and symbolic justice.
To the United Nations and the international community: Provide technical and financial support for the development of the infrastructure for commemoration and benefit from international expertise, while recognizing commemoration as part of reparation, and integrating this symbolic dimension into cooperation programs with Syrian transitional justice institutions to ensure its sustainability and equality with judicial dimensions.
