The “Syrian Democratic Council”—ostensibly a vehicle for Kurdish-Arab coexistence in former ISIS territories—is increasingly looking to normalize ties with the Assad regime, spelling disaster for the displaced residents of Raqqa and elsewhere, with no apparent opposition from its Western sponsors.

How a late French thinker gave us a framework with which to view Syrians as complex individuals, rather than central-casting actors in our grand-narrative fantasies.

[Editor’s note: This article was originally published in Arabic on 13 August, 2018] Recent weeks have seen thousands of Syrian families notified of the deaths of missing relatives in Assad regime custody. In one sense, this is nothing new, in terms of the regime’s long-established strategy of arresting and murdering its opponents. The clear spike in cases, however, with horrifying numbers reached in the past…

[Editor’s note: The below article was produced as part of Al-Jumhuriya’s 2017 Fellowship for Young Writers. It was originally published in Arabic on 9 August, 2018.] Whether it’s in conversations between public transport passengers, friends, relatives, or buyers and sellers at the market, the prevailing public discourse today clearly condemns the phenomenon of ta’fish (the looting of the homes of Syria’s forcibly displaced civilians). At…

Animals have not fared well at militants’ hands in Syria over the past seven years, though civilians have been kinder. Dr. Uğur Ümit Üngör traces the shifting role and symbolism of animals in Syria’s recent history.

In the ongoing conversations about the fate of Syria’s Idlib Province, and the areas surrounding it, more than three million people’s lives are at stake. The region is home to all the forcibly-displaced residents of other parts of the country who refused an accommodation with the Bashar al-Assad regime via so-called “settlements” or “reconciliations,” as well as the locals who fear the reprisals customarily carried…

[Editor’s note: The below is the foreword to a new book, The Holocausts We All Deny: Collective Trauma in the World Today, by Theo Horesh. The foreword was also published in Arabic on 1 August, 2018] Genocide is rare, or that is what we tend to believe. We think we can tally the number since the beginning of the twentieth century: if not four—the ones…

A recent manifesto signed by academics and activists called for a “reimagining of migration” in response to the new UN Migration Compact. Kester Ratcliff proposes further concrete steps toward a more humane—and sustainable—approach by the international community.

Work bans, endemic delays, and no translation assistance are just some of the extensive legal and bureaucratic obstacles faced by Syrian and other refugees seeking asylum in Britain. Al-Jumhuriya speaks to lawyers and civil society activists trying to help those trapped in legal limbo, in the UK and across Europe.

[Editor’s note: This article was originally published in Arabic on 24 July, 2018] On Monday morning, the 49-year-old Syrian artist May Scaff passed away in the French capital, Paris, where she had settled after a lengthy journey following her departure from Syria in 2013. The news was met with shock on Syrian social media, where tributes poured out for the artist and freedom activist who…