Millions of Syrians were under surveillance under Bashar Assad's rule

During the rule of former Syrian President Bashar Assad, special services monitored, searched, or collected information about approximately eight million people.

According to DW, this is almost a third of the Syrian people.

According to the country's Ministry of Internal Affairs, special services and other agencies have collected information about each of them.

In particular, more than eight million people have come to the attention of the special services for political reasons. This mainly concerns participants in protests and opponents of the regime. They are often accused of "terrorism", arrested, imprisoned or placed under surveillance.

A Syrian government spokesman said that most people only learned that they were under the surveillance of the special services when they were stopped at checkpoints or when they tried to leave the country.