Enab Baladi Citizen Chronicles of the Syrian Uprising Copies of Enab Baladi newspaper’s 45th issue among the debris of a destroyed building in the city of Daraya, rural Damascus (December 2013) Photo credit: Enab Baladi Enab Baladi Citizen Chronicles of the Syrian Uprising Enab Baladi Citizen Chronicles of the Syrian Uprising © Enab Baladi, 2019, All rights reserved. Editor: Joey Ayoub Translator: Alice Bonfatti Proofreader: Georgia Hyland Front cover image: Enab Baladi Book design: Enab Baladi Table of Contents Prologue: An Idea Called Daraya 7 Chapter 1 Why Enab Baladi? 13 1 - Why Enab Baladi? 15 2- I Am in This Revolution for Many Reasons 17 Chapter 2 Early Citizen Journalism from Daraya 19 1 - Daraya: Protesters and Security Forces Clash During the Friday of Right of Self-Defence 21 2 - Daraya: Evening Demonstrations Drain Assad’s Militias 22 3 - Daraya: A Women’s Sit-in Protest for the Detainees 23 4 - Daraya: Air Force Mukhabarat Used Machine Guns and Armoured Vehicles Against Student Demonstrations 24 5 - Mass Demonstration and Heavy Security at the "Arming the Free Syrian Army" Friday Protest 25 6 - Daraya: Some Are Released, but Many More Arrested 26 7 - Student Demonstrations on Wednesday for the Release and Freedom of Mohammed Sharkas 27 8 - Daraya: Near-daily Intrusions into the City by Shabbiha and Assad’s Forces 28 9 - Our Women: Demonstration in Solidarity with Nour al-Tal 31 10 - Besieged Daraya Fears the Madaya Scenario 32 Chapter 3 The Syrian Regime: A Long History of Civil Repression 35 1 - The Syrian Regime Continues Its Policy of Systematic Killing 37 2 - The Assad Regime: Is It Looking for Legitimacy and Justification for Its Actions? 40 3 - The Assad Regime Has Decided to Opt for Civil War! 44 4 - Between Rhetoric and Failure 47 Chapter 4 Women at the Frontline 49 1 - Women at the Heart of the Syrian Revolution 51 2 - Women at Work and Men at Home: Change of Roles Strikes a Hard Blow to Traditional Customs 54 3 - Women Fear Arrest: Assad’s Attempt to Suppress Their Voices 58 4 - Aleppo's "Little Women" 59 5 - Women Held Captive in Syria: Weapons of War and Terror 62 6 - You Can Never Besiege My Mind! 64 7 - In the Grips of Extremism: Syrian Women Forced into Slavery in Deir ez-Zor 66 8 - Wives Separated From Their Detained or Missing Husbands: Society Forbids What Shari'a Law Permits 69 9 - Little Openness Towards Women Working in Opposition-Controlled Areas 78 10 - Syrian Activists Taking off Their Veil: Revolution or Escape? 86 11 - Spouses, Friends and Families Divided as Struggles of War Reshape Bonds 90 12 - What You Don’t Know About Female Journalists’ Personal Lives Inside Syria 94 13 - Syrian Breast Cancer Patients Suffer Twice as Much During War 96 Chapter 5 Detainees and Stories from Syria’s Prisons 99 1 - On the Brink of Anticipation 101 2 - The Women’s Section of Adra Central Prison: Torture of a Different Kind 103 3 - Rasha Sharbaji: The Story of Detainee Number 714 106 4- ‘Nobody’’s Family... Memories of a Political Prisoner 109 5 - Documenting Darkness: Stepping Inside Syrian Prisons 111 6 - Branch 215’s Gargamel: The Military Security Officer in Damascus 119 Chapter 6 Violent Conflict 121 1 - Commander of the Martyrs of Islam Brigade to Enab Baladi: "We Have no Choice but to Sacrifice Everything" 123 2 - Abu Salmu: Commander of Osod al-Tawhid Battalion in Daraya in Conversation with Enab Baladi 129 3 - 32nd Anniversary of Hama Massacre: Facts and Testimonies Aabout One of the Most Brutal Contemporary Massacres 134 4 - From Damascus: This is Sparta! 136 5 - "The End of Aleppo": The Reasons Behind the Defeat and its Potential Consequences 140 6 - A Year After the Collapse of Aleppo, What Has Changed? 151 Chapter 7 Local Councils: Unique Examples of Self-Organisation 161 1 - Does Local Media Promote Hatred Between Arabs and Kurds in Syria? 163 2 - Arabs, Kurds, and the Social Ties That Overcome Political Conflicts 174 3 - Local Councils in Syria, Affiliation and Mechanisms: An Interview with Osama Natoof, Head of the Local Council of Rif Dimashq Governorate 181 Chapter 8 Refugees and Forced Displacement 185 1 - The Syrians Who Have Not Died Yet 187 2 - The Change of Priorities among Syrian Revolutionary Activists: From Ghouta to Germany 189 3 - Car Parks for the Displaced in Damascus 194 4 - How Will Daraya’s Children in the Camps Complete Their Education? 198 5 - Discouraging Refugees from Staying: How Lebanon is Forcing Syrians to Leave 199 6 - Syrian Refugees Are Forced to Buy the Worst and Most Expensive Passport in the World 206 7 - Syrians Change Their Names to Obtain Turkish Nationality 209 8 - 750 Syrian Minors Married to Foreigners from Nine Nationalities in 212 9 - Countless People Commemorate Syrian Dancer Hassan Rabeh Following His Suicide 213 10 - "Baynetna": An Arabic Library Opens in Berlin 215 11 - Hamish: A Cultural House for the Syrian Community in Istanbul 216 To Enab Baladi Martyrs Mohammad Anwar Kuraitem One of Enab Baladi’s Founders 28-11-2012 Mohammad Fares Shihadeh Daraya Reporter 16-01-2013 Ahmad Khaled Shihadeh Managing Editor 12-03-2013 Nabil Sharbaji One of Enab Baladi’s Founders 03-05-2015 Prologue An Idea Called Daraya By Joey Ayoub 1 By the time Huda was arrested by regime soldiers in 2013, the siege of Daraya, a suburb of Damascus, was entering its first year. Huda was arrested with two of her friends at a checkpoint and taken to a prison in Muadamiya, a town just south of the capital. This experience shaped her worldview, Huda told the Syrian media outlet Enab Baladi: "After being arrested I knew the meaning of injustice and I am more willing to ask for freedom". Huda, like many other Syrians, reported feeling a sense of awakening upon witnessing the brutality of the Assad regime first-hand. Fast-forward to August 2016. Daraya’s remaining people were forcibly evacuated after a deal was reached with the Assad regime to end the siege and return the town to regime control. They would follow the fate of the people of Homs before them and Aleppo and Eastern Ghouta after them. As the town was falling, a group of women from Daraya wrote an open letter stating: "We are demanding action from the international community" to prevent their forced displacement. No such action came, and so, Daraya fell. Four years of siege by Assad’s forces and the Lebanese sectarian militia Hezbollah left this small suburb desperate for an escape. They knew what the regime had done to other liberated cities, a regime whose slogans of "Assad or we burn the country" and "kneel or starve" were applied with barrel bombs, sieges, and gulags. People gathered at the graves of loved ones, many of whom were killed during the siege, packed whatever they could, and left. Many of Daraya’s sons and daughters made it to Idlib, the city and area in the north of Syria where many refugees ended up. Of the approximately three million civilians currently in Idlib, around half are refugees from elsewhere in Syria. Upon arriving in Idlib, Mohammed Abou Faris was told that he came from a special place. When he went looking for a job, a brick factory owner told him "you’re from Daraya, sir. You have everything. You’re our teachers". 1 Originally published on Al Jumhuriya on 9th December 2018. Republished here with permission. 7 Even before 2011, Daraya had gained a reputation for its nonviolent resistance to the Assad regime. Razan Zaitouneh, the celebrated lawyer and activist kidnapped by the rebel group Jaish al-Islam in 2013, called the city "a star before the revolution and a star during". Decades of activism This star shone in 1998 when, under Hafez Assad’s reign, some twenty youths were kicked out of a mosque by the cleric as their "lively discussions had veered too close to social change". Among them was a then-18-year- old Yahya Sharbaji, who would lead non-violent protests again when Daraya’s time came thirteen years later in 2011. Their actions were inspired by a form of Islamic humanism influenced by the pacifist cleric Abdul Akram al-Saqqa, who in turn introduced them to the philosophy of Sheikh Jawdat Said, another influential advocate of non-violence. Their expulsion from the mosque may have been surprising for such young minds, but that didn’t stop them from continuing to question established dogma. It shone again in 2003, when the US and UK invaded Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein. Daraya's youth, including al-Saqqa’s son-in-law Haytham al- Hamwi, held a protest to stand in solidarity with the Iraqi people. The Assad regime, although officially opposed to the invasion, rounded the activists up and sentenced most of them to three to four years in prison. With the intense socio-political discussions generated by the ‘Damascus Spring’ intellectual revolt of 2000-2001, and with the fear that he would be next, Assad could not tolerate a resurgence of civic activity. At the same time, the Assad regime made itself available to torture ‘suspects of terrorism’ on behalf of the US government. This was made most notorious with the case of Canadian-Syrian Maher Arar, who was kidnapped by US authorities in 2002, sent to Jordan and then transferred to Syria to be tortured for eight months. To quote ex-CIA agent Robert Baer: "If you want people to be well interrogated, you send them to Jordan. If you want people to be disappeared, you send them to Egypt.