BEIRUT, Nov 30, (AP): The secretary general of Amnesty International said Saturday that the new authorities in Syria have taken steps to show commitment to reform, transitional justice and reconciliation but says democracy is still lacking. A year after the fall of President Bashar Assad’s government, Agnes Callamard, who visited Damascus this week, said that having legal reform plans before parliament, committees for transitional justice and welcoming international rights groups and other experts were signs that change is happening in Syria.

"All of those things are very good signs but they are not very deep,” Callamard said in an interview with The Associated Press. Messages left with Syrian officials seeking comment Saturday were not immediately returned. After the fall of Assad in an offensive led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham of interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, Syria remains unstable.

Forces loyal to the government were blamed for taking part this year in sectarian violence against members of the country’s Druze and Alawite minorities in the coastal region and the southern province of Sweida that left hundreds dead. The state has formed committees to investigate atrocities against Druze in Sweida and the trial of those suspected of involvement in the violence along the coast in March began last week.

Over the past year, scores of Assad-era officials have been detained and are expected to be put on trial in the near future to face charges for human rights violations committed over decades in the Arab country. Callamard said she was told by Syrian officials, including the minister of justice, that hundreds of detainees are being held in "relation to abuses by the former regime.”

"There is seemingly a process whereby charges will be drafted very soon,” she said, asking what are the grounds for their arrest and who is going to try them. Callamard added that the legal framework needs urgent reform "because some of the most gruesome crimes under international law have not been domesticated.