News Center-The International Society for Human Rights (ISHR), a human rights organization based in Germany, issued a statement on Friday, warning of increasing violence, vigilante justice and progressive Islamization of Syria.

“The German government shouldn’t react guilelessly to promises made by jihadists. Where Alawites, Kurds, Christians, Druze, and students have been systematically murdered, further massacres are imminent,” the statement said.

“The new Syrian rulers are pushing ahead with the Islamization of the country,” said Valerio Krüger, Spokesperson for the ISHR's Executive Board. “Crosses are being destroyed on Christian graves, mosques are being built on university campuses, eating and smoking during the fasting hours of Ramadan is forbidden for everyone, women are being told to cover themselves, boys and girls are being taught separately in schools and have to sit separately on public transport.”

Vigilante justice instead of transitional justice

The Frankfurt-based human rights organization explained that freedom of expression and freedom of religion are still officially guaranteed in Syria. The new rulers of the HTS are a terrorist group that was initially linked to the terrorist militia IS and then to Al Qaeda under the name Al Nusra, the organization emphasized in the statement. “The Salafist jihadists were striving for an Islamist state with Sharia as the source of its laws. Instead of the often-proclaimed transitional justice system, which was supposed to punish crimes against humanity, arbitrariness, vigilante justice, and a justice system of revenge currently prevail.”

In the statement, the human rights organizations called on the new German government not to lose sight of the situation in Syria, to avoid premature financial concessions, and to measure the new Syrian rulers in terms of respect for human rights.