Back سوريا إبان حكم حزب البعث Arabic بعثچی سوریه AZB Баасісцкая Сірыя Byelorussian سووریای بەعس CKB Baasistická Sýrie Czech Συριακή Αραβική Δημοκρατία (1963 – 2024) Greek Siria baazista Spanish سوریه بعثی Persian Baathistinen Syyria Finnish République arabe syrienne French
Syrian Arab Republic | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1963–2024 | |||||||||
,_Flag_of_Syria_(1980%E2%80%932024).svg) Flag
(1980–2024) .svg) Coat of arms
(1980–2024) | |||||||||
| Motto: وَحْدَةٌ، حُرِّيَّةٌ، اِشْتِرَاكِيَّةٌ Waḥda, Ḥurriyya, Ishtirākiyya "Unity, Freedom, Socialism" | |||||||||
| Anthem: حُمَاةَ الدَّيَّارِ Ḥumāt ad-Diyār "Guardians of the Homeland" | |||||||||
_disputed_(Turkey_claim).svg) Syria proper shown in dark green; Syria's territorial claims over the most of Turkey's Hatay Province and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights shown in light green _-_SYR_-_UNOCHA.svg) | |||||||||
| Capital and largest city | Damascus 33°30′N 36°18′E / 33.500°N 36.300°E | ||||||||
| Official languages | Arabic[1] | ||||||||
| Ethnic groups | 80–90% Arabs 9–10% Kurds 1–10% others | ||||||||
| Religion |
| ||||||||
| Demonym(s) | Syrian | ||||||||
| Government | Unitary Neo-Ba'athist one-party[7] presidential republic[8]
| ||||||||
| President | |||||||||
• 1963 (first) | Lu'ay al-Atassi | ||||||||
• 1963–1966 | Amin al-Hafiz | ||||||||
• 1966–1970 | Nureddin al-Atassi | ||||||||
• 1970–1971 | Ahmad al-Khatib (acting) | ||||||||
• 1971–2000 | Hafez al-Assad | ||||||||
• 2000 | Abdul Halim Khaddam (acting) | ||||||||
• 2000–2024 (last) | Bashar al-Assad | ||||||||
| Prime Minister | |||||||||
• 1963 (first) | Khalid al-Azm | ||||||||
• 2024 (last) | Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali | ||||||||
| Vice President | |||||||||
• 1963–1964 (first) | Muhammad Umran | ||||||||
• 2006–2024 (last) | Najah al-Attar | ||||||||
• 2024 (last) | Faisal Mekdad | ||||||||
| Legislature | People's Assembly | ||||||||
| Historical era | |||||||||
| 8 March 1963 | |||||||||
| 21–23 February 1966 | |||||||||
| 5–10 June 1967 | |||||||||
| 13–16 November 1970 | |||||||||
| 6–25 October 1973 | |||||||||
• Occupation of Lebanon began | 1 June 1976 | ||||||||
| 1976–1982 | |||||||||
| 2000–2001 | |||||||||
| 30 April 2005 | |||||||||
• Civil war began | 15 March 2011 | ||||||||
| 26 February 2012 | |||||||||
| 8 December 2024 | |||||||||
| Area | |||||||||
• Total | 185,180[12] km2 (71,500 sq mi) (87th) | ||||||||
• Water (%) | 1.1 | ||||||||
| Population | |||||||||
• 2024 estimate | 25,000,753[13] | ||||||||
• Density | 118.3/km2 (306.4/sq mi) | ||||||||
| GDP (PPP) | 2015 estimate | ||||||||
• Total | $50.28 billion[14] | ||||||||
• Per capita | $2,900[14] | ||||||||
| GDP (nominal) | 2020 estimate | ||||||||
• Total | $11.08 billion[14] | ||||||||
• Per capita | $533 | ||||||||
| Gini (2022) | 26.6[15] low inequality | ||||||||
| HDI (2022) | 0.557[16] medium | ||||||||
| Currency | Syrian pound (SYP) | ||||||||
| Time zone | UTC+3 (Arabia Standard Time) | ||||||||
| Calling code | +963 | ||||||||
| ISO 3166 code | SY | ||||||||
| Internet TLD | .sy سوريا. | ||||||||
| |||||||||
Ba'athist Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic (SAR),[a] was the Syrian state between 1963 and 2024 under the one-party rule of the Syrian regional branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. From 1971 until its collapse, it was ruled by the Assad family, and was therefore commonly referred to as the Assad regime.
The regime emerged in the wake of the 1963 Syrian coup d'état and was led by Alawite neo-Ba'athist military officers. In 1970, president Nureddin al-Atassi and de facto leader Salah Jadid were overthrown by Hafez al-Assad in the Corrective Revolution. The next year, Assad became president after sham elections. An Islamist uprising against Assad's rule resulted in the regime committing the 1981 and 1982 Hama massacres. The regime was considered one of the most repressive regimes in modern times, ultimately reaching totalitarian levels,[17] and was consistently ranked as one of the 'worst of the worst' within Freedom House indexes.[18]
Hafez al-Assad died in 2000 and was succeeded by his son Bashar al-Assad, who maintained a similar grip. Major protests against Ba'athist rule in 2011 during the Arab Spring led to the Syrian civil war between opposition forces, government, and in following years Islamists such as ISIS which weakened the Assad regime's territorial control. However, the Ba'athist government maintained presence and a hold over large areas, also being able to regain further ground in later years with the support of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. In December 2024, a series of surprise offensives by various rebel factions culminated in the regime's collapse.
After the fall of Ba'athist Iraq, Syria was the only country governed by neo-Ba'athists. It had a comprehensive cult of personality around the Assad family, and attracted widespread condemnation for its severe domestic repression and war crimes. Prior to the fall of Assad, Syria was ranked fourth-worst in the 2024 Fragile States Index, and it was one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. Freedom of the press was extremely limited, and the country was ranked second-worst in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index. It was the most corrupt country in the MENA region and was ranked the second-worst globally on the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index. Syria had also become the epicentre of an Assad-sponsored Captagon industry, exporting billions of dollars worth of the illicit drug annually, making it one of the largest narco-states in the world.
- ^ "Constitution of the Syrian Arab Republic – 2012" (PDF). International Labour Organization. Retrieved 31 August 2020.
- ^ a b "Syria: People and society". The World Factbook. CIA. 10 May 2022. Archived from the original on 3 February 2021. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
- ^ "Syria (10/03)".
- ^ "Syria's Religious, Ethnic Groups". 20 December 2012.
- ^ Khalifa, Mustafa (2013), "The impossible partition of Syria", Arab Reform Initiative: 3–5
- ^ Shoup, John A. (2018), The History of Syria, ABC-CLIO, p. 6, ISBN 978-1440858352,
Syria has several other ethnic groups, the Kurds... they make up an estimated 9 percent...Turkomen comprise around 4-5 percent of the total population. The rest of the ethnic mix of Syria is made of Assyrians (about 4 percent), Armenians (about 2 percent), and Circassians (about 1 percent).
- ^ Sources:
- Shively, W. Phillips; Schultz, David (2022). "7: Democracies and Authoritarian System". Power and Choice: An Introduction to Political Science. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 188. ISBN 9781538151860.
- Derbyshire, J. Denis; Derbyshire, Ian (2016). "Syria". Encyclopedia of World Political Systems. New York, NY: Routledge. p. 610. ISBN 978-0-7656-8025-9.
- Mira, Rachid (2025). Political Economy in the Middle East and North Africa. 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158, USA: Routledge. pp. 273, 274. ISBN 978-1-032-21214-2.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) - Jones, Jeremy (2007). "4. Syria and Lebanon: Party Problems". Negotiating Change: The New Politics of the Middle East. 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA: I.B. Tauris. pp. 96–102. ISBN 978-1-84511-269-1.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) - Roberts Clark, Golder, Nadenichek Golder, William, Matt, Sona, ed. (2013). "14. Social Cleavages and Party Systems". Principles of Comparative Politics (2nd ed.). USA: Sage Publishing. p. 611. ISBN 978-1-60871-679-1.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
- ^
- "Syrian Arab Republic". Federal Foreign Office. 13 January 2023. Archived from the original on 25 March 2023.
System of government: Officially a socialist,... democratic state; presidential system (ruled by the al-Assad family, with the security services occupying a powerful position)
- "Syria: Government". CIA World Factbook. Archived from the original on 3 February 2021.
- "Syria Government". Archived from the original on 27 January 2023.
- "Syrian Arab Republic: Constitution, 2012". refworld. 26 February 2021. Archived from the original on 5 March 2019.
- "Syrian Arab Republic". Federal Foreign Office. 13 January 2023. Archived from the original on 25 March 2023.
- ^ Sources:
- Wieland, Carsten (2018). Syria and the Neutrality Trap: The Dilemmas of Delivering Humanitarian Aid Through Violent Regimes. London, UK: I.B. Tauris. p. 68. ISBN 978-0-7556-4138-3.
- Kassam, Kamal; Becker, Maria (16 May 2023). "Syrians of today, Germans of tomorrow: the effect of initial placement on the political interest of Syrian refugees in Germany". Frontiers in Political Science. 5: 2, 3. doi:10.3389/fpos.2023.1100446.
- Meininghaus, Esther (2016). Creating Consent in Ba'thist Syria: Women and Welfare in a Totalitarian State. I. B. Tauris. pp. 32, 69. ISBN 978-1-78453-115-7.
- Mira, Rachid (2025). Political Economy in the Middle East and North Africa. 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158, USA: Routledge. p. 273. ISBN 978-1-032-21214-2.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) - "Inside the house of Assad". The Week. December 2024. Archived from the original on 22 December 2024.
- ^ Sources:
- Thompson, Elizabeth (2013). Justice Interrupted. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 209, 227. ISBN 978-0-674-07313-5.
- F. Nyrop, Richard, ed. (1979). Syria: A Country Study (third ed.). Washington, D.C.: The American University. pp. 34–37. LCCN 79607771.
- Galvani, John (February 1974). "Syria and the Baath Party". MERIP Reports (25): 6–9. doi:10.2307/3011567. JSTOR 3011567.
- Ben-Tzur, Avraham (1968). "The Neo-Ba'th Party of Syria". Journal of Contemporary History. 3 (3): 164–166, 172–181. doi:10.1177/002200946800300310. S2CID 159345006.
It was some years before the all-Arab leadership was forced to reveal the bitter truth that the structure of the new Ba'th Party in Syria had been 'artificial' from the outset, and that since its rise to power in 1963 it had been based on 'elements that served the purpose of the governmental centres represented by the Military Committee. ... The Marxist left was quick to exploit the opportunities offered in the first few months of Ba'th rule... to engineer the elections to the regional conference (the first since the party's rise to power) to their own ends. The conference, held in September 1963,... set out the new party platform, which was to become the credo of the neo-Ba'th. ... In short, the Ba'th in its latest variant is a bureaucratic apparatus headed by the military, whose daily life and routine are shaped by rigid military oppression on the home front, and military aid from abroad.
- ^
- Khamis, B. Gold, Vaughn, Sahar, Paul, Katherine (2013). "22. Propaganda in Egypt and Syria's "Cyberwars": Contexts, Actors, Tools, and Tactics". In Auerbach, Castronovo, Jonathan, Russ (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Propaganda Studies. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 422. ISBN 978-0-19-976441-9.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Wieland, Carsten (2018). "6: De-neutralizing Aid: All Roads Lead to Damascus". Syria and the Neutrality Trap: The Dilemmas of Delivering Humanitarian Aid Through Violent Regimes. London: I. B. Tauris. p. 68. ISBN 978-0-7556-4138-3.
- Ahmed, Saladdin (2019). Totalitarian Space and the Destruction of Aura. Albany, New York: Suny Press. pp. 144, 149. ISBN 9781438472911.
- Hensman, Rohini (2018). "7: The Syrian Uprising". Indefensible: Democracy, Counterrevolution, and the Rhetoric of Anti-Imperialism. Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books. ISBN 978-1-60846-912-3.
- Khamis, B. Gold, Vaughn, Sahar, Paul, Katherine (2013). "22. Propaganda in Egypt and Syria's "Cyberwars": Contexts, Actors, Tools, and Tactics". In Auerbach, Castronovo, Jonathan, Russ (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Propaganda Studies. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 422. ISBN 978-0-19-976441-9.
- ^ "Syrian ministry of foreign affairs". Archived from the original on 11 May 2012.
- ^ "Syria Population". World of Meters.info. Retrieved 6 November 2024.
- ^ a b c "Syria". The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. Archived from the original on 3 February 2021. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
- ^ "World Bank GINI index". World Bank. Archived from the original on 9 February 2015. Retrieved 22 January 2013.
- ^ "HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2023-24" (PDF). United Nations Development Programme. United Nations Development Programme. 13 March 2024. pp. 274–277. Archived (PDF) from the original on 1 May 2024. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
totswas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Worst of the Worst 2011" (PDF). Freedom House. 2011. Retrieved 2 February 2025.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).