Government Arrests Officials from Qatana City Council over Unlicensed Construction

The Deputy Governor of Rural Damascus announced in February the arrest of the president of the city council and head of the technical office in Qatana, a suburb of Damascus located west of the Syrian capital, according to an article published by the semi-official newspaper Al-Watan on February 25. The officials are reportedly under investigation due to their involvement in concealing unlicensed construction.

Qatana is a city and district centre administratively belonging to the governorate of Rural Damascus. The city witnessed significant expropriations of local properties in the 1970s for the benefit of the Ministry of Defence, which established multiple military sites for the 10th Division and the Republican Guard, as well as housing for officers. There are five compounds in Qatana comprising hundreds of residences for officers, some of which were constructed by the Military Construction Establishment of the Ministry of Defence, including the residences of the 10th Division officers, Ras Al-Maara residences, and Tawaafiq residences. An active officer in the regime’s forces in Damascus and its countryside can rent a house in these compounds for a nominal fee during their service period until the end of their military service.

Some of these compounds have witnessed numerous cases of unlicensed construction by resident officers, such as expansions and the construction of annexes.

Over time, Qatana has become one of the largest residential areas for military and security officials in Rural Damascus, with a significant proportion of them hailing from the Syrian coast. Besides the housing allocated to them, some of these officers bought properties and land in Qatana and built homes where they lived after retirement, forming their own communities and neighbourhoods in the city.

The original residents of Qatana, who are Sunni Muslims, felt marginalised in their own city due to the extensive expropriations. This sentiment contributed to their participation in demonstrations against the regime at the onset of the 2011 uprising. With the emergence of armed opposition factions, several battles took place in Qatana before regime forces fully regained control by the end of 2012, expelling the opposition to the nearby Khan Al-Shih Palestinian refugee camp. The armed factions from Qatana formed a group named “Khan Al-Shih Gathering,” which fought against regime forces in western Rural Damascus. In 2016, regime forces, supported by Russian airpower, launched a large military campaign in the area, resulting in the forced displacement of opposition factions to northern Syria.

While most neighbouring cities, such as Zakia, Khan Al-Shih, and Kanaker, were under siege, Qatana became a market for building materials in the region. Since 2015, Qatana has witnessed large-scale unlicensed construction overlooked by municipal authorities, largely because those committing them were affiliated with regime forces.

According to a correspondent for The Syria Report, the president of the Qatana city council, Nourhan Imran, and the head of the technical office were detained by the Political Security Branch in Damascus on behalf of the Central Authority for Supervision and Inspection (CASI) on February 23. The correspondent noted that Ms Imran and the head of the technical office were released 24 hours after their detention and have since resumed their duties normally.

Sources within Qatana municipality reported that after her release, Ms Imran accused certain city council members of being responsible for her detention by filing what she described as “hundreds of malicious reports” against her. Ms Imran stated that her release came after she was “cleared” of the charges. However, these sources indicated that her release resulted from intervention by a security agency on her behalf, denying the claim of her exoneration. According to the sources, Ms Imran was involved in covering up multiple cases of unlicensed construction, which she ignored due to nepotism, personal relationships, or accepting bribes.

According to those sources, Ms Imran and the head of the technical office had taken preemptive steps to protect themselves. They wrote official reports on the unlicensed construction, demanding their removal by applying Building Violations Law No. 40 of 2012. It is common practice among Syrian officials involved in corruption to file reports on matters they wish to cover up, but then hinder the follow-up actions. It remains unclear how these reports are archived and not executed.

In any case, sources indicate that the reports submitted against Ms Imran to the CASI were not limited to concealing unlicensed constructions. They also highlighted her responsibility for corruption in the compulsory readjustment of land to property owners in Qatana.

Compulsory land readjustment occurs during the zoning of an area by reallocating land to rightful owners, often in different locations and after deducting a portion without compensation. According to Planning and Urban Development Law No. 23 of 2015, a zoned real estate area becomes a legal entity replacing all landowners and rights holders. The zoning work concludes by redistributing properties to rights holders according to their shares, and this redistribution must be exclusively within the zoning area.

In July 2023, journalist Reem Al-Saleh, who works for the official Al-Thawra newspaper, mentioned in a radio interview with Sham FM that her father owned six dunums within the zoning area of the city. The compulsory readjustment committee compensated him with two plots outside the zoning area. Ms Al-Saleh confirmed that the Rural Damascus Governorate Council was unaware of the issue, noting that the problem affected dozens of rights holders in Qatana who were compensated with plots outside the zoning area. Ms Al-Saleh accused the Qatana City Council, without naming Ms Imran.

In August 2023, Ms Imran told Al-Watan newspaper that the zoning decree No. 8 of 2015 in Qatana was issued according to the provisions of the old law No. 9 of 1974, which pertains to the division, zoning, and urbanisation of cities. This law allows for the free deduction of up to 45 percent of the area of properties within the zoned real estate area. She added that the entity responsible for responding to complaints is the compulsory readjustment committee, headed by a real estate judge. Ms Imran emphasised that as the head of the municipality, her role was solely to announce the issuance of the distribution tables and that the objection period for these tables ended on August 8, 2023.

She also explained that the zoning area included entire properties as well as parts of other properties. Therefore, owners of entire properties received their zoning plots within the area, while owners of partially zoned properties had parts of their land included in the area and parts remaining outside.

However, complaints indicated that owners of agricultural land within the zoning area were compensated with plots outside the area. Additionally, some rights holders were given plots in areas with existing occupations and residences. The Syria Report’s correspondent could not confirm the involvement of mayor Imran in the compulsory readjustment issue.