Multidimensional justice
While prosecution is one vital means of achieving justice, several other instruments could potentially be used to hold ISIS members accountable for their crimes. A transitional justice framework would provide various judicial and non-judicial instruments to give victims a sense of justice while contributing to peacebuilding and stability.
Truth commissions
The inability of the autonomous regional administration to prosecute all ISIS members should not violate the right of people to know or tell the truth about what happened. Truth commissions provide a platform for individuals to tell their stories (in private or through public hearings) and highlight the abuses committed against them. Gathering evidence in such a way would allow commissions to investigate the personal responsibility of ISIS members, help local authorities build legal cases, and identify suspected perpetrators and their crimes. It would also empower possible witnesses in helping security forces to speed up the processing of thousands of ISIS members.
Likewise, the use of truth commissions could provide more in-depth analysis of the full range of crimes committed by ISIS, thus contributing to the creation of a comprehensive judicial record of its atrocities and deepening understanding of the inner workings of the group. Through extensive consultations with locals, commissions could play a crucial role in identifying mechanisms (such as monetary compensation or public apologies) for providing justice to ISIS victims.
In most settings, truth commissions are typically organized at a national level, but the ongoing conflict in Syria does not allow the undertaking of such a process across the country. That said, the relatively stable security situation in northeastern Syria and the high percentage of ISIS abuses that have allegedly been committed there (in comparison to other parts of the county) could facilitate the formation of local truth commissions.
Missing persons’ committees
Human rights groups have documented the detention or forcible disappearance by ISIS of more than 8,000 people.42 The fate of these victims is still unclear. The SDF does not seem to have the capacity to provide their families with answers, given that it is overwhelmed by dealing with ISIS prisoners and sleeper cells.43 There is an urgent need for this task to be carried out by an external actor. While investigating the fate of the missing could in theory be undertaken by truth commissions, the extensive efforts required make forming a separate entity or entities to handle that task a necessity.
Working under the umbrella of truth commissions or in coordination with them, missing persons’ committees could be set up to oversee the gathering of information from the families of victims and handle their queries. Such committees could also collect and process information from the mass graves that have been discovered in northeastern Syria, as none seem to have been properly examined by the local administration.44
Information obtained from the interrogation of captured ISIS members (especially those who were in charge of prisons) and from debriefings with former prisoners of the group could also shed light on what happened to those who had been in ISIS custody.45
Victim reparations
Some sort of justice based on consultations with local communities could still be brought to ISIS victims even if the perpetrators are freed. Compensation could be provided to victims to contribute to their emotional, moral or economic recovery from the group’s brutalities. This could also help mitigate tensions arising from the limited number of prosecutions and the lenient approach to sentencing. If handled correctly, reparations could boost the legitimacy of local reconciliation deals brokered with tribal leaders.
Property restitution is one mechanism that could be used for this purpose. ISIS confiscated a significant number of assets from the region’s residents (who include ethnic and religious minorities and displaced people); the assets included dwellings and buildings that were seized for occupation, rental or sale by ISIS and its members.46 Reviewing and resolving property disputes, and providing the dispossessed with financial rehabilitation grants, could have a significant impact on victims’ ability to recover. Compensation could be paid by former ISIS members who had lived in the relevant homes during the group’s rule, or who are deemed responsible for damage to them. Alternatively, former members could help repair private or public property damaged by the group.
Acknowledging guilt and offering private or public apologies are examples of moral reparations. One resident of the region who was detained and tortured by ISIS says: ‘While nothing can really help undo what happened to me, receiving a genuine public apology from those who violated my rights can still be satisfying. I simply want the world to know what happened to me.’47
Healing programmes
The current prosecution-based approach in northeastern Syria has been unable to help communities recover. Former ISIS members are still stigmatized and socially isolated, including those who have served their sentences or were found not guilty of committing violent crimes.48 The lack of interaction between local residents and former ISIS members makes reintegration of the latter even harder. Creating platforms for victims and former ISIS members to interact could play a crucial role in helping communities heal.
Drawing on traditional or religious practices to create such programmes generally increases their effectiveness. Since northeastern Syria is widely identified as a tribal community, local tribal leaders could play an active role in supporting the establishment and promotion of healing platforms to create community buy-in. These could complement the ongoing tribal-sponsored reconciliation deals. They could enable released former ISIS members to tell their personal stories, highlight the factors that pushed them to affiliate themselves with the group, and explain the roles they played in it. Former members could use such platforms to show remorse and highlight the various remedies they may be employing to compensate for their actions. Doing so could contribute to greater understanding among residents of the individual responsibility of former ISIS members, and facilitate informed decisions as to who should still be considered a threat and who can safely co-exist with local communities.
Giving victims and local communities a voice in designing or implementing justice mechanisms could contribute to their healing. This could include allowing communities to have a say in the prosecution of ISIS members through jury trial – although it is vital that this should happen without endangering jurors’ safety. Giving communities the ability to contribute to the reconciliation process, by hearing and questioning its beneficiaries, could help increase its legitimacy. Such healing programmes could be implemented by the autonomous administration in northeastern Syria even before the beginning of a comprehensive transitional justice process.
A combination of the above-mentioned mechanisms could play a vital role in addressing the violations committed by ISIS, and thus in reducing community resistance to the reintegration of its members and in initiating a healing process.
42 Human Rights Watch (2019), ‘Reveal Fate of Missing Victims of ISIS’, 14 May 2019, https://bit.ly/2TLurO0 (accessed 13 Jan. 2020).
43 Author interview via Skype with a human rights activist based in Raqqa, March 2019.
44 Human Rights Watch (2019), ‘Reveal Fate of Missing Victims of ISIS’.
45 Information gathering should also include going through graffiti in ISIS prison cells.
46 Author interview via WhatsApp with a local resident from Raqqa, October 2019.
47 Author interview via WhatsApp with a local resident from Raqqa who was detained and tortured by ISIS members, September 2019.
48 Author interviews via WhatsApp with several former ISIS members based in Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor, November and December 2019.