“It’s true there is complexity and bureaucracy. They [the government] should be more transparent and this law does need to be changed,” said Fadel Abdul Ghany, head of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, or SNHR, which has been reliably documenting abuses on all sides since the beginning of Syria’s civil war. “But that happens everywhere. We also faced difficulties registering our organization and were unable to open a bank account in France,” he explained.
SNHR is now registered in Syria, works freely and is able to be critical of the state, Abdul Ghany said. And he pointed out that it was important to consider context.
“Syria is still devastated from conflict and look at what we inherited from the Assad regime — corruption, lack of funding, lack of experience, destroyed institutions,” he told DW. “I’ve met with ministers, I’ve visited the ministries and they all say they want reform. But it’s not easy.”
