Syria

Republic in southwest Asia bordered by Turkey (north), Iraq (east), Jordan (south) and Israel, Lebanon and the Mediterranean (west).

The Euphrates river flows southeast through Syria. To the north lie rolling plains, to the south the Syrian Desert, ending in the southwest with the Jebel Druz plateau and fertile Hauran plains. Further west lie the Anti-Lebanon mountains with Mount Hermon (2,814 metres) in the south, and the Ansariya range with the cultivated coastal plain beyond it in the north. The warm Mediterranean climate gives way inland to a more extreme temperature range. Annual rainfall (November - March) is heaviest (about 127 centimetres) on the west Ansariya slopes, while the desert has less than 13 centimetres. (see map)

Official Name	Al-Jamhouriya al Arabiya As-Souriya (The Syrian Arab Republic)
Capital	Damascus
Area	185,180 km2 (about the size of the state of Washington)
Government	A republic under a military regime since March 1963 with a unicameral legislature, the People's Council. The ruling party is the Arab Socialist Resurrectionist (Ba’ath) Party.
President	Hafez al-Assad (1971)
Premier	Mahmoud al-Zubi (1987)
Population (1997 estimate)	16,137,899, plus about 14,000 Jewish settlers in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights
Population Density	87 per km2
Literacy	78% male, 51% female
Languages	Arabic (official), Kurdish, Armenian, Aramaic, Circassian; French and English widely understood
Religions	74% Sunni Muslim; 16% Alawite, Druze, and other Muslim sects; 10% Christian; small Jewish communities
Ethnicity	90% Arab; 10% Kurd; Armenian and other
Life expectancy	65 years male, 67 years female
Birth rate	38.7 per 1000
Infant mortality Rate	38.8 per 1000
Monetary Unit	1 Syrian Pound = 100 piastres
Gross Domestic Product (1995 estimate)	US$ 91.2 billion
GDP per capita	US$ 5,900
Labour force	2,400,000; 36% miscellaneous and government services, 32% agriculture, 32% industry and construction
Organized labour	5% of labour force

History

Syria contains some of the most ancient remains of civilization. Part of the ancient Hittite empire, Ancient Syria was conquered by Egypt about 1500 B.C.E., and after that by Hebrews, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians and Greeks. Under the Seleucids after the death of Alexander the Great, it was later incorporated into the Roman empire by Pompey in 64 B.C.E.

From 64 B.C.E. until the Arab conquest in C.E. 636, it was part of the Roman Empire except during brief periods. The Arabs made it a trade centre for their extensive empire, but it suffered severely from the Mongol invasion in 1260 and fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1516. Syria remained a Turkish province until World War I.

A secret Anglo-French pact of 1916 put Syria in the French zone of influence. The state of Syria was formed from former Turkish districts, made a separate entity by the Treaty of Sèvres 1920 and divided into the states of Syria and Greater Lebanon. Both were administered under a French League of Nations mandate 1920-1941. The French were forced to put down several nationalist uprisings. In 1930, France recognized Syria as an independent republic, but still subject to the mandate. After nationalist demonstrations in 1939, the French High Commissioner suspended the Syrian constitution. In 1941, British and Free French forces invaded Syria to eliminate Vichy control.

Syria was proclaimed a republic by the occupying French on 16 September 1941 and exercised full independence effective 17 April 1946. Syria joined in the Arab invasion of Israel in 1948.

Syria joined with Egypt in February 1958 in the United Arab Republic but seceded 30 September 1961. From the late 1950s, emphasis in trade shifted toward the USSR and East European countries. The ruling Baathist Party, which assumed control of the government in 1963, favours socialism and pan-Arab nationalism. The Baath became the only legal party. The government has been dominated by members of the minority Alawite sect.

Since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war Israel has occupied the Golan Heights in the southwest; it formally annexed the area in 1981. On 6 October 1973 Syria joined Egypt in an attack on Israel. Syrian forces backed a 1970 Palestinian uprising in Jordan and have intervened in neighbouring Lebanon on behalf of various groups since 1976. Following the 6 June 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Syrian and Israeli troops exchanged fire in central Lebanon. Syria and Israel agreed to a cease fire on 11 June.

In the early 1980s the government faced growing unrest, especially from the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood; fundamentalist uprisings in Aleppo (1980) and Hama (1982) were brutally repressed. President Hadiz al-Assad, who was elected to a third term in 1985, also supported Iran in the Iran-Iraq war and has backed anti-Arafat factions within the Palestine Liberation Organization. Syria, which condemned the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty and successfully opposed a 1983 Israel-Lebanon peace accord, remains a key factor in the success of any overall Middle East peace settlement.

In 1990, President Assad discarded any possibility of legalizing opposition parties and in December 1991 voters approved a fourth term for Assad. Syria revoked a travel ban on its Jewish population in April 1992.

Human Rights Record

Syria’s judicial process is characterized by unfair trials and lack of due process. The country has a a long record of politically motivated detentions, and large numbers of people have been arrested for their religious beliefs, for nonviolent political beliefs, and for human rights activism. Prisoners are subject to severe human rights violations. They are often held incommunicado for years and denied visits by family members or lawyers. Torture is common and health conditions are known to be poor.

In recent years, the government has released several political prisoners, including many long-term prisoners of conscience. However, a large number of prisoners of conscience remain in detention, and some political activists continue to be arrested and jailed without charge or trial.

Syria continues to use the death penalty. The government has been operating under a state of emergency since 1963.

Syria and its neighbours

 

Sources

The World Almanac® and Book of Facts (Pharos Books, New York)

The New American Desk Encyclopedia (Signet)

1998 Information Please® Almanac (Information Please LLC)

Amnesty Interactive, A history and atlas of human rights (Voyager) (CD-ROM)

3D Talking Globe (Now What Software) (CD-ROM)