Syria's Central Bar Association, located in the center of Damascus, is teeming with lawyers. After the fall of Bashar Al-Assad on December 8, 2024, it took the new Syrian regime, led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), less than 10 days to renew the bar council. Led by Ahmed Mohamed Al-Douran, the head of the bar, the 11 members of the Free Bar association, which had been operating under the authority of HTS since 2017 in the northwestern province of Idlib, were dispatched to Damascus to replace the old council, elected under the supervision of the now-dissolved Baath Party.

"We came here, on the orders of the revolution, to overthrow the al-Assad regime and the Bar Council. The majority of its former members are criminals, corrupt individuals who were appointed by the Baath party. We have suspended their work pending the conclusion of investigations into their activities," explained Iskander Hussein, a lawyer from Maarat Al-Numan and member of the new bar council, which represents Syria's 55,000 practicing lawyers. At the back of his office is a single bed where he now spends his nights, far from his family back in Idlib.

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