Embassy of Syria in Prague – Bubeneč, Czechia, Street Českomalínská – 12-4-2008 (Krokodyl/Wikipedia via CC BY 3.0)Political dissidents have been too often stripped of their civic rights, professional licenses, and personal properties. Until today, citizens are obliged to pay bribes to civil servants or risk his or her paperwork being delayed endlessly.
Rula[i] used to work in the marketing department of one of the largest retail clothing companies in Syria when Bashar Al-Asad first came to office in 2000. “My post exposed me to the scale of corruption and fraud that controlled the country. For example, if a company paid, let’s say 500,000 SYP [around $10.000 at that time] a year in taxes, it would be paying 5 million in bribes that end up in the pockets of state employees. This is the ratio. And you can do anything you want. Anything, as long as you pay,” Rula told SyriaUntold from Dubai, where she currently lives.
In recent years, just as political oppression has reached new heights, including war crimes and the proliferation of prohibited weapons, corruption has also increased and is used as a tool of war against the opposition, and a massive source of war-generated income at the expense of the population in general.
