Syria - The Revolution

SYRIA - The Revolution
40

This is the first chapter of a photo book
about the Syrian Revolution.
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channels to support this book project.
You can also send money using
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Intro: Malek Tarboush
1 Syria before the revolution
2 The first demonstrations
3 The regime is killing us
4 The barrel bombs
5 The beginning of an armed resistance
6 Silence in the world outside Syria
7 The rising of Daesh
8 The schools are empty
9 America and Russia answers us with bombs
10 The Free Syria
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Intro:
Malek Tarboush
4

Living in Assad’s Syria before the revolution was like living my life
in a big prison. But the walls and boundaries were in my thoughts
and my dreams.
I was afraid everywhere, because the security forces could arrest me at
any time and torture me and even kill me if I was talking about banned
topics.
And those who should be telling the truth: journalists, media and
teachers were corrupted by money and power.
Or too scared to tell the truth.
When the revolution came, I was filled with hope. It was what I had
waited for, in so many years.
I remember my first demonstration.
I was so scared. I could not imagine that I would be able to shout
loudly about the frustration I felt.
I remember that I took a few steps into the demonstration, and then
backed away, and then dared to rejoin again.
Shouting freely from my heart was so foreign to me.
But I was filled with life, felt alive, as if someone had slept inside me
all these years and just woke up.
It was as if something inside me began to grow there, like a seed that
has been in the dark for many years who suddenly feel the earth and
sun and water.
My heart began to beat, and my heart demanded freedom.
Although I knew that I could die in the demonstration, I knew I had
to be there. For the first time I was able to explain all the feelings and
thoughts that had been hidden. For the first time I was able to talk
about the ugly truth about Assad’s dictatorship.
That time I was happy and relieved. But I was soon arrested.
The Shabeha* came to one of our demonstrations and beat me with
sticks.
I started bleeding from my head and was taken to a small cell with 14
other young men and the Shabeha started torture us with cables.
I was left, laying on the ground nearly naked all the night.
It was so cold.
Then they cut my hair and humiliated me and talked bad about my
family.
They left all of us without food for several days and we had to drink
water from the toilet to survive.
They took me to the confession room and tortured me because I
refused to sign a paper saying I was an armed terrorist.
I had to pay a very large sum of money to get released.
But I was lucky.
Most prisoners never leave Assad’s prisons alive.
Still, this week of arrest was the harshest experience in my life and I
wish that no one in this world had to go through this experience.
5

But even after this, I couldn’t stay away from the demonstrations.
I had to be brave, for my dignity, for my country and for my freedom.
Our demonstrations and slogans threatened the dictatorship.
Our courage was dangerous for the regime. They tried to build the
prison of fear within us again, but now we were alive, our hearts was
strong and nothing could make us go back to silence.
Shortly after, the military began shooting us. One by one, people fell
in the demonstrations and their hearts stopped beating.
People died by the hundreds. Soon thousands.
It was after this the opposition started to use weapons do defend the
people in the demonstrations.
It is important to remember this. The revolution in Syria was
peaceful for a very long time and the people who got killed in the
demonstrations were unarmed.
But the silence of the international community and the brutality of this
regime forced the opposition to take up arms.
Assad’s forces have continued to kill us since then. And they still
focus on killing us who don’t bear arms.
Every day the helicopters fly over our houses where we civilians live.
Where the schools and hospitals and markets are located.
They are dropping barrels filled with explosives and sharp metal
pieces aimed to kill and hurt as many people as possible.
And they try to stop food, water and medicines to reach us.
Despite all this, it is better to live in the liberated parts than in the
regime areas. For in the liberated areas, we have the freedom to
express ourselves and put words to our thoughts and opinions. We
can discuss freely. We are alive inside, because we lived in fear for so
many years and now we have to throw away this fear.
If we become afraid and silent again, the regime has won.
I think that the European people should learn more about Syria and
Assad’s dictatorship. To understand what happens and what our
struggle is.
Not long ago, Europe struggled against dictatorships and fascists who
used to burn books and use terror to control people’s thoughts.
Now we in Syria are fighting for the same freedom as Europe did
60 years ago. I hope that this book can help people outside Syria to
understand us, and support us in our revolution.
Malek Tarboush, Photo journalist in Aleppo
*”Shabeha” are criminal gangs paid by the regime of al-Assad and the
Ba’ath Party to kill, torture and spread fear among civilians in Syria.”
6

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ, at least 61 journalists have been
killed during the war in Syria. CPJs figures only cover those journalists who died during
journalistic work, in targeted attacks and where the cause of death can be authenticated.
Syrian Journalist Association has listed all the journalists killed during the civil war.
Their numbers at the end of Mars 2016 was 358.
According to Reporters Without Borders, 78 per cent of the journalists killed in Syria were
citizen journalists.
Citizens who started to document what they saw, and had to send their reports to the world
outside syria, in the lack of international media on the ground.
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8
The Schools
are Empty
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Before the revolution I was a French language teacher in a school
close to the old medieval castle in Aleppo. When the revolution
came, some of the teachers who were pro-Assad moved to areas
where regime was in control, and my old school was soon bombed.
Because I stood up against the dictator, I was wanted by the regime
and therefore had to start working in field schools. Even though
teaching now is very hard cause of the frequent bombings, it has many
advantages from how it was before.
Before the revolution, we used to see schools as military bases where
the directors behaved as generals. Horrible punishments were applied,
such as using the cane to beat students and other brutal practises that
doesn’t belong in schools at all.
Now, in the schools in the liberated areas, we have at last get rid of
these punishments. They are totally forbidden and it makes me happy
and proud every day.
One more important thing that makes me feel proud of my field
schools is that all the pictures of al-Assads family and their military
commanders are ripped out from the books. Curriculum is filtered and
modified to not to have anything about al-Assad family or his regime.
Before, it was like being in a prison to have to teach the students about
the greatness of the dictator every day in class.
Now I feel free, as teachers and students should feel.
To understand the brutality of the regime, we have to see the pattern
of how al-Assad reacts to people who try to disobey him. When the
regime loses a town or the people in a city dare to stand against Bashar
al-Assad, the regime try to destroy everything that could grow strong
and free in that area. Aleppo is a clear example of this. The regime is
using barrel bombs to kill civilians each and every day. In the hunt
for the regime to cause the biggest loss of civilians, they tend to
target marketplaces, homes and medical facilities. And of course, the
schools.
Many are the students and children who have been killed in their classrooms,
or on their way to or from school. One of the worst massacre
against the kids was in Ein Jaloot. That day, kids were having an exhibition.
By the help of their teachers, they had prepared an exhibition to
show the current situation through paintings to encourage their talent.
Some kids were really talented and some paintings were really good.
Kids were happy preparing for that exhibition. But as by given commando,
two aircrafts bombarded the schoolyard using missiles. The
first one fell close to the school, while the second one was a direct hit.
Targeting the school was very clear. They targeted kids on the day of
the exhibition where they were showing drawings about the massacres
committed by this regime. Sadly, more than 40 kids were killed that
day, in addition to 2 teachers: Bahsar and Nasr. Now those kids and
the teachers are in a higher place, they went from being in classrooms
to being in Heaven. I have to think like this to manage to go on.
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After that massacre, I met one of the kids who survived the attack.
His name is Tawfik and he is 10 years old from al Sukkary area.
He is still recovering from the massacre, but he is trauamtized after
what he witnessed.
When I met him he told me:
“Suddenly my friends was ripped in pieces and scattered on top of
me. I was feeling nothing around me, I only saw blood.”
Now Tawfik, and many other kids, never go to school. They are too
afraid. And this is the plan of the regime. These bombings of schools
aren’t only a disaster for the families who are losing their youngest,
but also for the whole education system and the future for our
liberated areas. Because parents have, for understandable reasons,
stopped sending their children to school. We teachers try to practice
our profession in basements or other shelters who are less dangerous,
but the regime are really furious in targeting us whenever they get
information about our hidden schools.
They try to destroy every hope for a future.
And as brutal as ever, Assad aims at our children.
My name is Asma Assad.
My friends and I used to wake up and go to school at 7 am
and come back in the afternoon. We went there always.
We were happy at school.
But one day, the bell suddenly rang and never stopped, so we went
down to the schoolyard to look what was going on. Seconds later
the school was leveled by bombs dropped by a plane. Students were
injured and many were killed directly at the schoolyard. Only a couple
of girls and I are still alive. Those who were still alive but injured went
to the hospital. The teachers went to check them but new bombs was
dropped and shatter and shrapnel hurt them.
The teachers closed the school after this, but they reopened in a new
location after a week.
We started school again.
But so many in my class were missing.
Asma Assad - 9 year old student.
Ali Ghazal, teacher in liberated Aleppo
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Over 20 000 children have been killed by the regime since 2011.That is over 94% percents
of all killed children in Syria.
One quarter of Syrian schools have been damaged, destroyed, or is used as shelters or for
other purpose than education.
Between 2011 and 2014 at least 3878 schools was targeted by the regime.
Schools are protected from attacks by International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.

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(Above) Eid festival launched by the education institution in the liberated areas of Aleppo.
(Right) Opening of a new school in the liberated areas of Aleppo after other was bombed.
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(Left) Class in a special school for orphans.
(Below) Orphans trying to paint a brighter future on a school wall.
As the precision bombings of schools continues, more and more schools have moved their classrooms and schoolyards
underground.
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(Above) Sidra is an orphan girl. Her mom and dad were killed by Assad’s militias a year ago. She now lives with her sister.
They try to handle the losses, but new shells, aircraft bombings and explosive barrels continue to haunt them everyday.
Two months ago Sidra stopped going to school. She said “I hate school”.
(Right) Children on their way to school in liberated parts of Aleppo.
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(Left) Barrel bombs falling over populated areas in the liberated areas of Aleppo.
(Below) Father holding his son whilst trying to escape after a barrel bomb hit his home.
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(Above) Painting by children of Ayn Jalout school. The photo was taken shortly after a warplane hit the school and killed 22
children. The children had gathered to have vernissage of their paintings. The child who drew this painting was killed that day.
(Right) Ten year old girl under rubble after her home is hit by a barrel bomb. The civil defense is trying to rescue her, but
she died before they could dig her out of the rubble.
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(Left) Four buildings wiped out after being targeted by several barrel bombs in the liberated areas of Aleppo.
(Below) Children are playing in an underground shelter, because it’s to dangerous to be out because of aerial bombing.
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(Above) Because of heavy shelling and airstrikes targeting students, one school chosed to go to each students home and
deliver the final result and certificate at their door.
(Right) Young student who lost her legs is playing football in a school for disabled in the liberated areas of Aleppo..
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(Left) Girl trying to sell wood in the winter in the liberated areas of Aleppo. A lot of chiildren have to help their families by
working instead of going to school.
(Below) Trying to support their families, children are trying to sell biscuits and candy on the streets.
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(Above) Child playing with a balloon he got from the garbage.
(Right) A stove painted on a wall and children from the neighborhood is playing the get warmth from it. Many children don’t
have any heater in their homes, which is hard in the winter when the temperature reaches below -10 celcius in the nights.
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channels to upport this book project.
You can also send money using
Swish to:
073-445 76 30
138