Moral support

Ali Farzat

I dedicate this post to Ali Farzat, a Syrian political cartoonist, who speaks outright against the regime, or more appropriately I should say, draws his views against the regime (below are images of some of his work, taken from his website). Yesterday, Ali Farzat was beaten up savagely by the Syrian security forces and subsequently left on a Damascus road, where people then took him to hospital to be treated. 

As always, we should admire the courage and bravery of our fellow Syrians, for risking their lives to demand freedom and dignity from a brutal repressive regime. 

You are the revolution

Imagine the situation that's been occurring in Hama. It's 40°C. Under siege for days without water, electricity or access to contact anyone.

The food you have is whatever is stored in your home, and without electricity cooking anything is not possible. Anyone venturing outside their homes is likely to be shot by a sniper, yet there are many who are trying to get food in order to feed their families, so they don't starve to death.

Access to hospitals is also out of bounds as is the pharmacy, so if you are ill, or injured, you have to self-medicate at home or suffer in pain. With electricity being cut, hospitals can't function fully, and there are reports of many babies dying in their incubators due to this.

Shelling of the city has been going on day & night. Random shelling of homes that are occupied, shops & businesses. There is no peace of mind, sleep is hard to come by. Army forces can knock on your door at any moment & arrest all the males, shabiha thugs will rape the women while the security forces steal all things valuable and leave in a trail of destruction.

It's Friday, yet no mosque was allowed to perform Friday prayers. The mosques were all closed & empty. Any mosque that called for prayers had it's minaret shelled & bombed.

This is only the watered down version or lite version of what is going on. The same happened in Dar'a, Baniyas, Homs, Latakia & it's now taking place in Deir ezZor & Hama. 

Did you know all this? Does your neighbours, work colleagues, fellow students, friends & family know all this? Does your MP know all of this? With human rights abuses taking place left, right & centre! With a massacre going on, the world media still insist on not highlighting the events in Syria fully. Newspapers put us on the latter pages with little info provided. TV & satellite news channels dedicate only a few minutes to Syria without fully disclosing the real events taking place. There hasn't been much discussion on the radio channels regarding Syria. If not for the Internet activists, then news on Syria would have been scarcely available.

Help spread the word. Don't be silent, don't be passive. Please please be active, read, like, comment, share, protest, write letters, phone radio & TV stations, lobby, sign petitions etc.... YOU ARE THE REVOLUTION!!!

Map of protests in Syria- 07/08/11

Here is a map of protests across Syria , on Sunday 07/08/2011: 

View Syria - Sunday 07/08/2011 in a larger map

Peaceful Protesters

I wanted to share a few videos of protests from a few areas of Syria, all of which are from the evening of 07/08/2011. I wanted to highlight from these videos that there is no violence at protests, that protesters are not armed and are certainly peaceful. Protests right across the country since mid-March have been like this, until mukhabarat turns up creating violence.

(I will try to upload videos, on a regular basis, of protests across the country in order to show the continued peacefulness of protesters in Syria.)

Deir Ba'albah, Homs:

Waer, Homs:

Latakia: 

Qadam, Damascus: 

The killing of a dream

The following video takes a look into the Bahrani uprising that is still on-going. I urge at least all Syrians to watch, to see the similarities between the two uprisings: the injustice, the propaganda, the military intervention and occupation, chaos caused by intervention, casualties, death, mass arrests as well as the pain and anguish of protesters.

My heart goes out to every Bahrani. I can now truly understand their pain and suffering. I wish that one day their dreams will come true and their demands are met Inshallah. I hope those opposing the Syrian Uprising watches and learns from Arab uprisings across the region.

How does Assad differ from Mubarak? Or Gaddafi? Or Al Khalifa, the King or Crown Prince of Bahrain? Syrians who called for the fall of Mubarak and Gaddafi and now oppose the Syrian Uprising, how can you even justify your support for Assad and Ba'ath party now? 

In the face of death, it ain't a waste of breath

In the Darkest Hour

When the world has turned away

And no one’s watching

When the sky has turned to gray

And you have no options

When your voice is illegal

Only choice for the people

Is to stand up proudly

In the face of death

It ain’t a waste of breath

When you speak up loudly

You can’t take our freedom or take our soul

Take our freedom or take our soul

You are not the one that’s in control

La illaha illallah

No power’s greater than God’s

Go ahead and devise your plans

At the end of the day you are just a man

Syrian Uprising...

For countless hours, I have spent keeping up with the news of the Syrian uprising. Back in March I had a university interview, after which I hoped to then spend 6 months lazing around in Syria, hanging out with the family, teaching English, improving my Arabic and enjoying the lovely weather and country that Syria beholds. Who wouldn't enjoy spending their time in numerous Syrian towns and cities? Though the week of my interview was when the Syrian Uprising began - 15th March 2011 (though to be fair there have been protests in Syria prior to the 15th March, but it really took steam from then onwards).

To start off with, protesters didn't demand or call for the removal of Assad or the Ba'ath party. Demands included the end of emergency laws, the release of political detainees and more political freedom. As time passed, we saw countless human rights abuses and very little reforms made. As a result, protesters began demanding that Bashar should leave "Yalla irhal ya Bashar" as well as demanding the fall of the regime "Sha3ab areed iskat al nizam" (translated appropriately to "The Syrian people demand the toppling of the regime"). 

Of course there are still genuine pro-regime supporters out there, mainly because they benefit from the regime being there and could also have a lot to lose if they left. Everyone involved with the regime could potentially face punishment if Assad were to fall. Many still claim that what Syria is facing is a conspiracy aimed to destabilise Syria first and then the whole region. They also claim that many of the protesters are armed and are causing all the violence, that the Syrian army is only protecting the Syrian people from "armed gangs" and Islamic extremists. The Syrian regime isn't the only one promoting these claims - Libyan and Bahrani governments use similar tactics to suppress their own protests and uprisings.

I counter these claims stating that so far, the majority of videos coming out from Syria are showing protesters to be peaceful. Protests in a number of regions since the start of the uprising has seen no violence by protesters which a number of videos give testimony to. Syrians, I know and completely trust, who are protesting on a regular basis in Syria are stating that they are peaceful and that are not armed. Many videos do show live fire used by mukhabarat against protesters in a number of places as well as showing graphic videos of dead Syrians at the hands of the mukhabarat, shabiha and army units. Of course there are times, when protesters do avenge the killings; we have seen videos whereby police officers have been beaten and killed in some instances but so far I've found these to be few and very rare. On the whole it is the Syrian regime causing all the violence, bloodshed, civilian casualities and deaths. Of course protesters involved in crimes, should be put to trial and tried justly, but the numbers involved in this category are a very small minority. I find it understandable that protesters would want to avenge the killings, since there's the saying "an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth", but I would rather the Syrian regime be tried in court and each one punished accordingly and I wouldn't want my fellow countrymen to steep down to the regime's level of atrocities. 

What the Syrian regime is doing is wrong. It cannot suppress protests with violence. It cannot torture its own civilians, whether men, women or children. It cannot kill its own civilians. How can Syrians justify such horrendous acts of violence against its own people? For this reason alone, Bashar and his regime should go. It doesn't matter whether Bashar al Assad has the full power of the country; the whole Ba'ath party should be dissolved. The Ba'ath party was responsible for many crimes throughout their rule, and will continue to be responsible for many more crimes if they continue to rule. Crimes such as the Hama massacre in 1982 where they took at least 10,000 lives (though numbers are more likely to be over 40,000 since many are still missing and not registered as dead), the Tadmor prison massacre, and the Jisr al-Shughour massacre. Since the Assads began rule, they have detained many Syrians for political reasons and have subjected many of them to torture. 

For me, this is the first time I live through and feel the pain of my fellow Syrians. Family members and friends have been through ordeals because of Rifaat and Hafiz al Assad (and now Bashar too); their stories alone send shocks down my spine. Hearing what Syrians currently are experiencing are sending more shivers and shocks down my spine again. 

I hope 50 years from now, we will look back in history and see how much we have moved forward; progress which we would never seen under the current party. We do have numerous obstacles along the way, but let's start by removing the Ba'ath party. We need to punish those responsible for crimes against humanity. We need to rid the country of corruption. Day after day, we will continue to make Syria a better country. Let not the excuse of chaos ruin what we could have, and not let chaos become a reality. We owe it to the martyrs. We it owe it every Syrian who risked their lives. We it owe it every Syrian who was detained and tortured just so we can be free from the Ba'ath party and Assad rule, so we see a better future. 

So let's start again...

I've had a few blogs in the past, where I ended up feeling too 'chicken' to keep them online for fear of the consequences it could bring. It came to the point now, where I feel I should start again.

I want to use this blog to help raise awareness of what's currently happening in Syria, a way to express my own thoughts and opinions and also hope to convey the demands of those protesting out in the streets of Syria. I've had countless heated discussions with family members on the current events, where we really do differ on our opinions. Maybe this is just a taster of what to expect in post-Assad Syria.

In time I will write more and more on Syria.