Government forces massacred hundreds of Alawite families in Syria's coastal towns last week, drawing strong condemnation from Russia behind closed doors at the UN
News Desk - The Cradle
“We hope this will be a good beginning for the Syrian people on the path of building and development. We hope this will be a new history for Syria, where we replace ignorance with knowledge and suffering with mercy,” said Sharaa, who was known until December as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani.
The document affirms the de facto government's “commitment to human rights agreements” and says the recently dissolved People's Assembly will assume full legislative authority. At the same time, Sharaa will exercise executive authority and be granted the right to declare a state of emergency.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Abdulhamid al-Awak, a law professor at a Turkish university and one of the seven members of the committee Sharaa tasked to draft the temporary constitution, said the new document would maintain some previsions from the previous one, “including the stipulation that the head of state has to be a Muslim, and Islamic law is the main source of jurisprudence.”
He also claimed that the temporary constitution includes “provisions that enshrine freedom of expression and the media” and revealed that a “new committee to draft a permanent constitution will be formed” down the line.
Al Jazeera reports that Sharaa will appoint one-third of the new People's Assembly.
In January, the Military Operations Department of the de facto government in Syria named Sharaa as president during a “transitional phase” and also dissolved the previous constitution, the People's Assembly, the national army, security services, and all armed factions – including Sharaa's own HTS.
Sharaa, who seized power in Damascus thanks to a Turkish-backed armed coup, later claimed that democratic elections and a new constitution would come years down the line.
Syria's new constitution was signed exactly one week after extremist armed groups acting as government security forces launched a bloody ethnic cleansing campaign in Tartous, Latakia, and Hama, killing over 1,000 Alawite civilians.
Members of different extremist factions that have been integrated into the Turkish-backed Ministry of Defense and armed forces went door to door, killing civilians for several days, including women and children. Many of the massacres were documented on video by the militants themselves.
The sectarian violence was discussed at the UN Security Council (UNSC) this week, where Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia compared it to the 1994 Rwandan genocide when Hutu extremists systematically massacred hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Sources that spoke with Reuters said Nebenzia told those gathered that “no one” had stopped the killing in Syria.
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