Best & Worst of CPAC's Free Speech Ratings: Syria

CPAC's inaugural Freedom of Speech Ratings assessed the health of freedom of expression in 31 countries. In its latest assessment, Syria came in at the absolute bottom of the ratings with a dismal 0% score, ranking it as one of the most repressive nations in the world. The total lack of freedom of speech reflects a society where the basic right to speak, believe, or exist outside of a rigid ideological framework has been systematically extinguished by the state.

The current state of Syria is defined by a transition from the decades-long dictatorship under the Bashar al-Assad regime to a new, equally repressive authority led by an al-Qaeda-linked militia. While the overthrow of the Assad regime in December 2024 was initially met with hopes of liberation, the succeeding transitional government has instead established a radical Islamist system that criminalizes independent thought. 

Under the interim Constitutional Declaration enacted in March 2025, Islamic jurisprudence was designated as the primary source of all legislation, a policy that effectively outlaws any speech or religious practice deemed inconsistent with a radical interpretation of Sharia law. The regime enforces these restrictions through the newly formed Ministry of Media and specialized "morality" security units that monitor public discourse and digital communications to ensure total compliance with the state's religious and political ideology. By utilizing these tools to silence critics and religious minorities, the Syrian government has ensured that any narrative contradicting its radical agenda is met with swift and often lethal retribution.

The case of Suleiman Rashid Saad serves as a chilling testament to the extreme violence used by the new Syrian regime. In December 2024, the Syrian government was taken over by an al-Qaeda-linked militia, and in the aftermath, government-backed militants began a systematic campaign of slaughter against Christians and Alawites. The Alawite religion is an esoteric form of Shia Islam that incorporates some Christian and Zoroastrian elements, making its practitioners a primary target for Muslim extremists who view them as apostates. Influential Islamic clerics who inspired this movement have infamously declared that Alawites are even greater unbelievers than Christians or Jews, fueling a climate of intense hostility and state-sanctioned violence. In March 2025, reports confirmed that hundreds of Alawites had been massacred, including 25-year-old Suleiman Rashid Saad. In a display of horrific brutality, militants cut out Suleiman’s heart and placed it on top of his chest as a symbolic warning to others.

Suleiman’s brutal murder and the broader campaign against religious minorities serve as a stark reminder of the lengths the new Syrian regime will go to in order to purge any form of ideological or religious diversity. Because of Syria's systematic slaughter of those who do not conform to its radical policies and its absolute criminalization of free expression, it received the lowest possible score in CPAC's Freedom of Speech Ratings.

Read the full brief here.

Not every case of imprisonment for speech gets widespread media attention. If you are aware of a case in which a person was imprisoned for speech and received a harsher sentence than the political prisoner whom we feature in the scorecard, please send the details of the case to slaird2@conservative.org. To meet our methodological criteria, the person must be 1) imprisoned or sentenced to prison for speech that would have been protected under the US first amendment, 2) a citizen of the country in which they are imprisoned, 3) received a sentence of imprisonment for at least one month OR were imprisoned without being sentenced for at least 3 months 4) not imprisoned for any actual crime during the same period for which they were sentenced for a speech crime.

CPAC vehemently opposes the views of many of the political prisoners featured in the Freedom of Speech Ratings. Political prisoners are featured in the Freedom of Speech Ratings for the purpose of revealing the state of legal Freedom of Speech protection in their countries. Political prisoners are selected based on the objective facts of their cases; each selected prisoner is the person who received the harshest sentence in that country for speech that would have been protected by the US First Amendment. CPAC stands for the right to Freedom of Speech for everyone, even people whose views we vehemently oppose.