A significant majority of the Druze population resides in the rugged Jabal Al-Arab region in the southeast. The few remaining Jews are concentrated in Damascus and Aleppo. Yazidis are found primarily in the northeast. The security services are constantly alert to any possible political threat to the state and all groups, religious and nonreligious, are subject to surveillance and monitoring by government security services. Consequently, there is a strict, de facto separation of church and state.
Religious groups tend to avoid any involvement in internal political affairs.
The Government, in turn, generally is reluctant to involve itself in strictly religious issues. Although the law does not prohibit proselytizing, the Government discourages such activity in practice, particularly aggressive proselytizing when such activity is deemed a threat to the generally good relations among religious groups. Foreign missionary groups are present but operate discreetly. The Government banned Jehovah's Witnesses as a politically motivated Zionist organization in 1964. Although Jehovah's Witnesses have continued to practice their faith privately, the Government arrested several Jehovah's Witnesses as they gathered for religious meetings in 1997.