In mid-2026, as the world is engulfed in a technological tsunami that transcends borders and continents, the Syrian Ministry of Information issues a "circular" attempting to rein in digital platforms. This scene harks back to the pre-2011 era, reflecting a stark gulf between the mentality of "official ban" and a virtual reality whose algorithms recognize neither national borders nor ministerial decrees.
There is only one "brilliant" way the Ministry could engineer the Syrian media landscape as it pleases: to completely cut off the internet, confiscate devices, and force everyone to read printed newspapers. Only then, and only in that "technological coma," could the Ministry claim to be "regulating" the media in the age of the digital revolution.
Gentlemen, words are countered with words, and arguments are refuted with action. Instead of wasting time chasing digital phantoms and shutting down institutions, build competitive institutions capable of surviving in the marketplace of ideas. The inability to compete cannot be remedied by censorship.
Days after the Damascus governor opened the door to a government headache with his latest circular, the Ministry of Information has now opened a new door to interpretation and back-and-forth, even though the equation is simple: confront the people with facts and transparency; be honest and clear with them. For example:
• What are the details of the agreement between the government and the SDF?
• How much money and property has been collected as a result of the "settlements," and where will it go?
• Where are the rest of the war criminals who were pillars of the regime? Why don't you pursue war criminals within Syrian territory without requiring a lawsuit from a victim who may be buried?
• Why haven't you been able to reveal the fate of the children of detainees, children in a forest about whom we know nothing?
• Why haven't you protected the mass graves and reburied the bones properly instead of letting children play with skulls?
• Why haven't you revealed the fate of the disappeared detainees? And why have you prevented the publication of any document concerning them under threat of legal prosecution and imprisonment according to the electronic publishing law passed by Assad? • Why did you appoint inexperienced individuals to diplomatic posts in powerful countries like America? Is it conceivable that the chargé d'affaires in Germany doesn't speak German (the minister's son)?
• What is your justification for raising electricity prices and the gas shortages? Are you aware that the days of Ramadan were a misery for most Syrians due to their dire financial straits?
• How can one person be appointed to four positions, and you repeat this mistake hundreds of times under the pretext of loyalty?
• What about the dismissed employees of the revolution who are searching for stale bread after your promise to reinstate them?
• What about the displaced Bedouin from Suwaida, confined to tents and cheap hotels without any real support, and their families at the mercy of the criminal Hajri?
Is discussing and criticizing these points considered "sedition and mob rule"? Is this the "New Syria"?
The Deputy Minister of Information's desperate defense of this decision "nail and nail" is more frightening than trustworthy; it seems like an official declaration of the beginning of a "long night" of intellectual repression in the "People's Democratic Republic of Northern Syria." A night that may force free pens to return to square one: working under pseudonyms and resorting to "coordination committees" to smuggle the truth and disseminate news.
As for that chorus that emerges in the comments demanding the "crushing" of journalism, do not be deceived by their pompous presence; they are like a pufferfish, full of air and devoid of any substance.
We will continue to defend the Syria of 2011, and there will be no licenses for press institutions, only state-controlled media, nothing more.
Al-Hussein Al-Shishakli - Zaman Al-Wasl
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