ALEPPO, Syria — The Syrian opposition is doubting the veracity of President Bashar al-Assad's recent decree promising amnesty or reduced sentences for certain crimes. The pertinent question is: Will this decree be any different from his other "pardons" issued throughout the Syrian revolution?

Syrian state news agency SANA reported that Assad agreed Sept. 15 to grant general amnesty for many crimes committed before Sept. 14. Under the decree, many criminal offenses are mostly pardoned, and partial pardons are to be granted for some but not all terrorism-related crimes. Death sentences supposedly will be reduced to life sentences with hard labor, and life sentences are to be cut to 20 years.

Abductors who kidnapped people for a ransom are to be granted full amnesty, provided that they release the kidnapped and hand them over to a competent security authority. All army deserters, at home or abroad, will receive pardons if they turn themselves in and begin military service, according to the decree.

Asmaa Mohammad al-Mahmoud, a civilian activist who lives in the opposition-controlled western Aleppo province, told Al-Monitor, “The opposition in Idlib province and the Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch areas of Aleppo province is still in general skeptical and cynical of the amnesty decision. Every opposition civil activist I know believes that this would not guarantee the release of detainees from the regime’s prisons, especially those who joined the ranks of the armed Syrian opposition, as well as the thousands of political detainees.”