Geneva -- The fall of the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria in December 2024 was hailed worldwide, but has been replaced by jihadists, who are delivering the same cruelty, only with different colours, a group of Syrians has said in Geneva.

The United Nations' European headquarters is in Geneva and from there a group of minority Syrian leaders launched a global petition.

They announced it on Sept. 9, at the Geneva Press Club on the sidelines of the UN Human Rights Council, which was debating Syria.

They called for the UN and world leaders not to welcome Mohammed al-Joulani, the Saudi-born transitional Syrian leader, at the upcoming General Assembly, which opens next week in New York. 

More than thirteen years after the outbreak of war and amid a stalled political transition following the fall of the Assad regime, Syria's minorities continue to endure massacres, forced displacement, and systemic discrimination, the group said,

MASSACRES OF ALWAWITES AND DRUZES

This, they said, is demonstrated by recent massacres of Alawites and Druzes by al-Joulani's government-affiliated forces.

The group, including Alawite, Druze, Yazidi, Kurdish, Syriac Christian, and Sunni voices, assembled survivors, community representatives, activists, and international advocates, who spoke at a press conference.

Earlier, on August 21, a group of UN experts had sounded the alarm over a wave of armed attacks on Syrian Druze communities in and around Sweida governorate since July 13.

They cited reports of killings, enforced disappearances, abductions, looting, destruction of property, and sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls.

"We are gravely concerned by reported attacks targeting the Druze minority for their faith and other grounds, including the forced shaving of religious men's moustaches and hateful rhetoric on social media portraying Druze as traitors and infidels to be killed, and calling for the abduction and enslavement of Druze women," the experts said.

On Sept. 9, Rawan Osman, a Germany-based Syrian activist, the daughter of a Sunni father from Damascus, spoke at the Geneva Press Club with other Syrians, saying that the Syrian people have been betrayed twice.

"First, by Assad, who destroyed his own nation, murdering hundreds of thousands and displacing millions. And second, by jihadists, who rose in his shadow, promising liberation but delivering the same cruelty, only with a different flag."

She said that in Syria, jihadists have filmed themselves tormenting Kurds, Alawites, Christians, and now, most recently, the Druze of Sweida.

"Some will say, 'At least Assad was better than Al-Julani.'

"But let me remind you: it is because of Assad that men like Al-Julani exist. It is Assad's prisons, his torture chambers, his massacres that bred a generation of broken men ready to be recruited by jihadists. Assad and the extremists are not opposites. They are partners in a cycle of despair."

Joseph Lahdo is a Christian and the head of the Syrian Syriac Union Party, Europe Branch, who held senior positions in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.

"We have experienced painful events, and the wounds remain open. There was burning of your monasteries and churches in more than seven locations in Sweida province and attacks on innocent worshippers," he said.

The current population of the Syrian Arab Republic is 25,783,626 as of September 10, 2025, based on Worldometer's elaboration of the latest United Nations data.

The CIA Factbook says that 87 percent of Syria's population is Muslim, with Sunnis accounting for 74 percent, and Alawi, Ismaili, and Shia for 13 percent. There is a Christian population of 10 percent and a Druze population of three percent.