A decision by the General Civil Aviation Authority to convert the Mezzeh Military Airport into a private civil hub for business aviation and VIP travel has ignited sharp controversy among human rights advocates, legal experts, and residents of surrounding districts. The plan envisions an integrated “aviation community” of hotels, business centers, training academies, and maintenance facilities built around the site.
Critics argue that Mezzeh Airport is inseparable from the atrocities committed under the deposed Bashar al-Assad regime, making it a site of national trauma that demands forensic preservation and investigation before any commercial development proceeds.
Located south of the Mezzeh neighborhood, the airport covers roughly 6.8 square kilometers. Established during the French Mandate, it served for decades as Damascus’s main dual-use airport until Damascus International Airport opened in 1970, after which Mezzeh became a central military base.
During the Syrian uprising, the base functioned as a command center for military operations, artillery shelling, and airstrikes targeting nearby towns such as Daraya and Moadamiyah. It hosted units from the Republican Guard, Special Forces, and Air Force Intelligence, including detention and interrogation branches long associated with enforced disappearances and torture.
A Crime Scene Before an Investment Zone
Legal scholar and transitional justice researcher Mansour Al-Omari condemned the privatization plan, warning that it disregards the rights of tens of thousands of victims and risks erasing a critical chapter of national memory. He described the airport as a historical landmark of modern human rights violations and called for an immediate suspension of the project.
Al-Omari argued that transforming a site used for systematic abuses into a commercial enclave requires forensic auditing, evidence preservation, and direct participation from victims’ families. He recounted his own detention at the facility alongside prisoners from every Syrian province, stressing that its physical structures still contain vital historical and biological evidence.
When asked about oversight, the National Transitional Justice Commission said it had no involvement in the decision and referred inquiries to the Ministry of Defense. Ministry representatives stated that no official comment is currently available, leaving unresolved questions about which authority holds jurisdiction over the airport’s conversion.
Concerns Over Deepening Social Inequality
Wassim Kassab Bashi, a political researcher at Istanbul Nişantaşı University, warned that dedicating the site to high-net-worth individuals risks widening economic divides at a moment when social cohesion is fragile. He questioned the ethics of constructing elite infrastructure while basic needs across the country remain unmet.
Bashi also pointed to reports of mass graves linked to Air Force Intelligence detention centers at the airport, asking how commercial development could proceed over land where victims may be buried.
Landowners Seek Restitution After Decades of Expropriation
Real estate expert and Moadamiyah resident Moataz Sawan emphasized that the airport’s land—estimated between 3,500 and 4,000 dunams—is part of a broader pattern of expropriation in Moadamiyah, where up to 85 percent of the town’s 44,500 dunams were seized over past decades.
The airport comprises four main plots. While the first was expropriated during the French Mandate, three additional plots were annexed during expansion plans in the 1970s, with formal expropriation notices issued in the late 1980s and 1990s. Sawan noted that original landowners never received proper compensation and that Syrian law stipulates expropriated land must revert to its owners if the designated public-utility purpose ceases or changes.
He said local families possess complete documentation for surrounding properties and intend to continue pursuing legal remedies and restitution through local governance authorities.
This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
