Syria - The Revolution
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SYRIA - <strong>The</strong> <strong>Revolution</strong><br />
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This is the first chapter of a photo book<br />
about the <strong>Syria</strong>n <strong>Revolution</strong>.<br />
Share this preview on your social media<br />
channels to support this book project.<br />
You can also send money using<br />
Swish to:<br />
073-445 76 30<br />
138
Intro: Malek Tarboush<br />
1 <strong>Syria</strong> before the revolution<br />
2 <strong>The</strong> first demonstrations<br />
3 <strong>The</strong> regime is killing us<br />
4 <strong>The</strong> barrel bombs<br />
5 <strong>The</strong> beginning of an armed resistance<br />
6 Silence in the world outside <strong>Syria</strong><br />
7 <strong>The</strong> rising of Daesh<br />
8 <strong>The</strong> schools are empty<br />
9 America and Russia answers us with bombs<br />
10 <strong>The</strong> Free <strong>Syria</strong><br />
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Intro:<br />
Malek Tarboush<br />
4
Living in Assad’s <strong>Syria</strong> before the revolution was like living my life<br />
in a big prison. But the walls and boundaries were in my thoughts<br />
and my dreams.<br />
I was afraid everywhere, because the security forces could arrest me at<br />
any time and torture me and even kill me if I was talking about banned<br />
topics.<br />
And those who should be telling the truth: journalists, media and<br />
teachers were corrupted by money and power.<br />
Or too scared to tell the truth.<br />
When the revolution came, I was filled with hope. It was what I had<br />
waited for, in so many years.<br />
I remember my first demonstration.<br />
I was so scared. I could not imagine that I would be able to shout<br />
loudly about the frustration I felt.<br />
I remember that I took a few steps into the demonstration, and then<br />
backed away, and then dared to rejoin again.<br />
Shouting freely from my heart was so foreign to me.<br />
But I was filled with life, felt alive, as if someone had slept inside me<br />
all these years and just woke up.<br />
It was as if something inside me began to grow there, like a seed that<br />
has been in the dark for many years who suddenly feel the earth and<br />
sun and water.<br />
My heart began to beat, and my heart demanded freedom.<br />
Although I knew that I could die in the demonstration, I knew I had<br />
to be there. For the first time I was able to explain all the feelings and<br />
thoughts that had been hidden. For the first time I was able to talk<br />
about the ugly truth about Assad’s dictatorship.<br />
That time I was happy and relieved. But I was soon arrested.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Shabeha* came to one of our demonstrations and beat me with<br />
sticks.<br />
I started bleeding from my head and was taken to a small cell with 14<br />
other young men and the Shabeha started torture us with cables.<br />
I was left, laying on the ground nearly naked all the night.<br />
It was so cold.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n they cut my hair and humiliated me and talked bad about my<br />
family.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y left all of us without food for several days and we had to drink<br />
water from the toilet to survive.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y took me to the confession room and tortured me because I<br />
refused to sign a paper saying I was an armed terrorist.<br />
I had to pay a very large sum of money to get released.<br />
But I was lucky.<br />
Most prisoners never leave Assad’s prisons alive.<br />
Still, this week of arrest was the harshest experience in my life and I<br />
wish that no one in this world had to go through this experience.<br />
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But even after this, I couldn’t stay away from the demonstrations.<br />
I had to be brave, for my dignity, for my country and for my freedom.<br />
Our demonstrations and slogans threatened the dictatorship.<br />
Our courage was dangerous for the regime. <strong>The</strong>y tried to build the<br />
prison of fear within us again, but now we were alive, our hearts was<br />
strong and nothing could make us go back to silence.<br />
Shortly after, the military began shooting us. One by one, people fell<br />
in the demonstrations and their hearts stopped beating.<br />
People died by the hundreds. Soon thousands.<br />
It was after this the opposition started to use weapons do defend the<br />
people in the demonstrations.<br />
It is important to remember this. <strong>The</strong> revolution in <strong>Syria</strong> was<br />
peaceful for a very long time and the people who got killed in the<br />
demonstrations were unarmed.<br />
But the silence of the international community and the brutality of this<br />
regime forced the opposition to take up arms.<br />
Assad’s forces have continued to kill us since then. And they still<br />
focus on killing us who don’t bear arms.<br />
Every day the helicopters fly over our houses where we civilians live.<br />
Where the schools and hospitals and markets are located.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y are dropping barrels filled with explosives and sharp metal<br />
pieces aimed to kill and hurt as many people as possible.<br />
And they try to stop food, water and medicines to reach us.<br />
Despite all this, it is better to live in the liberated parts than in the<br />
regime areas. For in the liberated areas, we have the freedom to<br />
express ourselves and put words to our thoughts and opinions. We<br />
can discuss freely. We are alive inside, because we lived in fear for so<br />
many years and now we have to throw away this fear.<br />
If we become afraid and silent again, the regime has won.<br />
I think that the European people should learn more about <strong>Syria</strong> and<br />
Assad’s dictatorship. To understand what happens and what our<br />
struggle is.<br />
Not long ago, Europe struggled against dictatorships and fascists who<br />
used to burn books and use terror to control people’s thoughts.<br />
Now we in <strong>Syria</strong> are fighting for the same freedom as Europe did<br />
60 years ago. I hope that this book can help people outside <strong>Syria</strong> to<br />
understand us, and support us in our revolution.<br />
Malek Tarboush, Photo journalist in Aleppo<br />
*”Shabeha” are criminal gangs paid by the regime of al-Assad and the<br />
Ba’ath Party to kill, torture and spread fear among civilians in <strong>Syria</strong>.”<br />
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According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ, at least 61 journalists have been<br />
killed during the war in <strong>Syria</strong>. CPJs figures only cover those journalists who died during<br />
journalistic work, in targeted attacks and where the cause of death can be authenticated.<br />
<strong>Syria</strong>n Journalist Association has listed all the journalists killed during the civil war.<br />
<strong>The</strong>ir numbers at the end of Mars 2016 was 358.<br />
According to Reporters Without Borders, 78 per cent of the journalists killed in <strong>Syria</strong> were<br />
citizen journalists.<br />
Citizens who started to document what they saw, and had to send their reports to the world<br />
outside syria, in the lack of international media on the ground.<br />
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8<br />
<strong>The</strong> Schools<br />
are Empty<br />
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Before the revolution I was a French language teacher in a school<br />
close to the old medieval castle in Aleppo. When the revolution<br />
came, some of the teachers who were pro-Assad moved to areas<br />
where regime was in control, and my old school was soon bombed.<br />
Because I stood up against the dictator, I was wanted by the regime<br />
and therefore had to start working in field schools. Even though<br />
teaching now is very hard cause of the frequent bombings, it has many<br />
advantages from how it was before.<br />
Before the revolution, we used to see schools as military bases where<br />
the directors behaved as generals. Horrible punishments were applied,<br />
such as using the cane to beat students and other brutal practises that<br />
doesn’t belong in schools at all.<br />
Now, in the schools in the liberated areas, we have at last get rid of<br />
these punishments. <strong>The</strong>y are totally forbidden and it makes me happy<br />
and proud every day.<br />
One more important thing that makes me feel proud of my field<br />
schools is that all the pictures of al-Assads family and their military<br />
commanders are ripped out from the books. Curriculum is filtered and<br />
modified to not to have anything about al-Assad family or his regime.<br />
Before, it was like being in a prison to have to teach the students about<br />
the greatness of the dictator every day in class.<br />
Now I feel free, as teachers and students should feel.<br />
To understand the brutality of the regime, we have to see the pattern<br />
of how al-Assad reacts to people who try to disobey him. When the<br />
regime loses a town or the people in a city dare to stand against Bashar<br />
al-Assad, the regime try to destroy everything that could grow strong<br />
and free in that area. Aleppo is a clear example of this. <strong>The</strong> regime is<br />
using barrel bombs to kill civilians each and every day. In the hunt<br />
for the regime to cause the biggest loss of civilians, they tend to<br />
target marketplaces, homes and medical facilities. And of course, the<br />
schools.<br />
Many are the students and children who have been killed in their classrooms,<br />
or on their way to or from school. One of the worst massacre<br />
against the kids was in Ein Jaloot. That day, kids were having an exhibition.<br />
By the help of their teachers, they had prepared an exhibition to<br />
show the current situation through paintings to encourage their talent.<br />
Some kids were really talented and some paintings were really good.<br />
Kids were happy preparing for that exhibition. But as by given commando,<br />
two aircrafts bombarded the schoolyard using missiles. <strong>The</strong><br />
first one fell close to the school, while the second one was a direct hit.<br />
Targeting the school was very clear. <strong>The</strong>y targeted kids on the day of<br />
the exhibition where they were showing drawings about the massacres<br />
committed by this regime. Sadly, more than 40 kids were killed that<br />
day, in addition to 2 teachers: Bahsar and Nasr. Now those kids and<br />
the teachers are in a higher place, they went from being in classrooms<br />
to being in Heaven. I have to think like this to manage to go on.<br />
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After that massacre, I met one of the kids who survived the attack.<br />
His name is Tawfik and he is 10 years old from al Sukkary area.<br />
He is still recovering from the massacre, but he is trauamtized after<br />
what he witnessed.<br />
When I met him he told me:<br />
“Suddenly my friends was ripped in pieces and scattered on top of<br />
me. I was feeling nothing around me, I only saw blood.”<br />
Now Tawfik, and many other kids, never go to school. <strong>The</strong>y are too<br />
afraid. And this is the plan of the regime. <strong>The</strong>se bombings of schools<br />
aren’t only a disaster for the families who are losing their youngest,<br />
but also for the whole education system and the future for our<br />
liberated areas. Because parents have, for understandable reasons,<br />
stopped sending their children to school. We teachers try to practice<br />
our profession in basements or other shelters who are less dangerous,<br />
but the regime are really furious in targeting us whenever they get<br />
information about our hidden schools.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y try to destroy every hope for a future.<br />
And as brutal as ever, Assad aims at our children.<br />
My name is Asma Assad.<br />
My friends and I used to wake up and go to school at 7 am<br />
and come back in the afternoon. We went there always.<br />
We were happy at school.<br />
But one day, the bell suddenly rang and never stopped, so we went<br />
down to the schoolyard to look what was going on. Seconds later<br />
the school was leveled by bombs dropped by a plane. Students were<br />
injured and many were killed directly at the schoolyard. Only a couple<br />
of girls and I are still alive. Those who were still alive but injured went<br />
to the hospital. <strong>The</strong> teachers went to check them but new bombs was<br />
dropped and shatter and shrapnel hurt them.<br />
<strong>The</strong> teachers closed the school after this, but they reopened in a new<br />
location after a week.<br />
We started school again.<br />
But so many in my class were missing.<br />
Asma Assad - 9 year old student.<br />
Ali Ghazal, teacher in liberated Aleppo<br />
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Over 20 000 children have been killed by the regime since 2011.That is over 94% percents<br />
of all killed children in <strong>Syria</strong>.<br />
One quarter of <strong>Syria</strong>n schools have been damaged, destroyed, or is used as shelters or for<br />
other purpose than education.<br />
Between 2011 and 2014 at least 3878 schools was targeted by the regime.<br />
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.<br />
(Right) Opening of a new school in the liberated areas of Aleppo after other was bombed.<br />
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(Left) Class in a special school for orphans.<br />
(Below) Orphans trying to paint a brighter future on a school wall.<br />
As the precision bombings of schools continues, more and more schools have moved their classrooms and schoolyards<br />
underground.<br />
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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.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y try to handle the losses, but new shells, aircraft bombings and explosive barrels continue to haunt them everyday.<br />
Two months ago Sidra stopped going to school. She said “I hate school”.<br />
(Right) Children on their way to school in liberated parts of Aleppo.<br />
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(Left) Barrel bombs falling over populated areas in the liberated areas of Aleppo.<br />
(Below) Father holding his son whilst trying to escape after a barrel bomb hit his home.<br />
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(Above) Painting by children of Ayn Jalout school. <strong>The</strong> photo was taken shortly after a warplane hit the school and killed 22<br />
children. <strong>The</strong> children had gathered to have vernissage of their paintings. <strong>The</strong> child who drew this painting was killed that day.<br />
(Right) Ten year old girl under rubble after her home is hit by a barrel bomb. <strong>The</strong> civil defense is trying to rescue her, but<br />
she died before they could dig her out of the rubble.<br />
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(Left) Four buildings wiped out after being targeted by several barrel bombs in the liberated areas of Aleppo.<br />
(Below) Children are playing in an underground shelter, because it’s to dangerous to be out because of aerial bombing.<br />
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(Above) Because of heavy shelling and airstrikes targeting students, one school chosed to go to each students home and<br />
deliver the final result and certificate at their door.<br />
(Right) Young student who lost her legs is playing football in a school for disabled in the liberated areas of Aleppo..<br />
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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<br />
working instead of going to school.<br />
(Below) Trying to support their families, children are trying to sell biscuits and candy on the streets.<br />
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(Above) Child playing with a balloon he got from the garbage.<br />
(Right) A stove painted on a wall and children from the neighborhood is playing the get warmth from it. Many children don’t<br />
have any heater in their homes, which is hard in the winter when the temperature reaches below -10 celcius in the nights.<br />
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138