Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria's new leader, signed a constitution for a five-year transitional period and laying out rights for women and freedom of expression. Sharaa, taking the lead of the region after Bashar al-Assad's dictatorship ended, called the beginning of his government a “new history” for Syria. 

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Sharaa's declaration comes just a week after a 'massacre' in  Syria’s Mediterranean in which at least 1,500 civilians were killed by the security forces. Most among them were from the Alawite minority to which the Assad family belongs. 

The interim president of Syria said on Thursday (March 13) that he hoped the declaration would mark the beginning of “a new history for Syria, where we replace oppression with justice … and suffering with mercy”. 

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The declaration has mentioned the five years of transitional period in which a “transitional justice commission” would be formed to “determine the means for accountability, establish the facts, and provide justice to victims and survivors” of the former government’s misdeeds. 

The document further said that “the glorification of the former Assad regime and its symbols” is barred in Syria from now on, along with “denying, praising, justifying or downplaying its crimes”. 

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'One of the biggest massacres'

In "one of the biggest massacres" since Bashar-al Assad's fall, Syria witnessed over 1,000 killings in the clashes between security forces and Assad regime loyalists since March 6. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that 973 civilians, 125 members of Syrian security forces and 148 Assad loyalists have been killed so far in the clashes. 

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The United Nations called the reports of entire families being killed in north-west Syria as "extremely disturbing". It is being considered as Syria's highest death toll since the start of its revolution in 2011. 

(With inputs from agencies)