Now we don´t have free media in Syria. So had we not had this ability to in these networks that can allow people to monitor the situation on the ground and document it, we would never have been able to release the truth. I mean, the international community would be very much like back in 1982. You hear rumors of something going on in Hama. But you don´t know the reality of it. You don´t see it.
But being able to actually document it and within hours, telling you and showing you videos of massacres of protests– the protestors who are peaceful, standing in front of tanks and sort of lifting their hands and saying the people in the army are one. And trying to cajole the army into joining them rather than shooting at them. No one would´ve seen this kind of bravery.
We don´t know what kind of bravery happened in Hama in 1982. We don´t know what kind of massacres took place in 1982. We only know that a huge chunk of the old city was destroyed and now it´s empty, you know? And there is a big hotel there, right on the mass graves, basically. That only a couple of journalists who were there by accident, Thomas Friedman, I think, is one of them.
And Robert Fisk is another, who actually managed to document what happened in 1982. And tell you there were mass graves and there were massacres. But other than these two very small accounts, nothing on 1982. We made certain that we don´t have another Hama by creating these networks. And of course Assad is gonna be angry. We robbed him of the ability to massacre people quietly and away from the eyes of the world.
We documented his atrocities. And one day he will go to trial, basically. Whether it´s gonna be in the Hague or it´s gonna be inside Syria itself, it´s up to him. But one day he will go to trial because of the atrocities he committed. And because of our ability to document that. So, this is what the citizens of Syria, what the citizen journalists did. What these young activists armed with satellite phones and smart phones and cameras and laptops did.
Ammar Abdulhamid is a Syrian human rights activist who in 2003 founded the Tharwa Foundation, a grassroots organization that enlists local activists and citizen journalists to document conditions in Syria. In response to his activities, the Syrian government subjected Abdulhamid to repeat interrogation and threats. In September 2005, he and his family were forced into exile in the United States. From his home in Maryland, Abdulhamid remains one of the leading bloggers and commentators on events in Syria through the Syrian Revolution Digest.
Follow Ammar Ahbdulhamid on Twitter @Tharwacolamus and on his blog, Syrian Revolution Digest.
The Syrian Arab Republic originated as a secular, socialist state dominated by the Ba’ath party, an Arab nationalist movement. The state has since evolved into an autocracy headed by a single family and dominated by members of the minority Alawite sect, a branch of Shia Islam.
The Ba’ath Party took power in Syria in a series of coups d’état in the 1960s and 1970s. One of the leaders of those coups, Hafez al-Assad, became president in 1971 and led the country until his death in 2000. Under Assad, Alawites assumed control over the state security forces. In 1982, Assad’s forces stormed the city of Hama to brutally suppress a Sunni rebellion, killing thousands of civilians.
Following the death of Hafez al-Assad, his son, Bashar al-Assad, was elected president by a referendum in which he ran unopposed, officially garnering 97 percent of the vote. He was reelected in 2007, again with 97 percent of the vote.
The Syrian government is one of the world’s most brutal and restrictive. From 1963 to 2011, the government operated under an “Emergency Law,” which suspended many constitutional protections of civil liberties. The government continues to use arbitrary detention and torture against political opponents, and operates through an extensive internal security apparatus, including secret police. The government controls most of the country’s media outlets, and access to the Internet is permitted only through state-operated servers. The minority Kurdish population has been continually discriminated against and repressed.
Influenced by movements in Egypt and Tunisia, large opposition protests took place across Syria in 2011. The government responded with a harsh crackdown. Security forces fired on protestors, killing thousands. The crackdown led the Arab League to suspend Syria’s membership. The Assad regime attempted to appease dissenters through a series of low-level and largely inconsequential reforms in 2011 and 2012. However, the conflict has escalated into full-fledged civil war with both liberal and Islamic militias being formed to fight against the Assad regime. The Assad regime has continued to attempt to defeat the opposition using air strikes and heavy artillery to attack rebel-held neighborhoods. Freedoms of association, assembly, and the press were restricted even further as the government attempted to quell the uprising. Over a million people have been either internally displaced or fled the country as refugees.
In the summer of 2013, it was confirmed that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons to attack civilians. Over 600 people were killed in one such attack in the Ghouta suburb of Damascus using a nerve agent confirmed to be sarin. The Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons drew international attention and resulted in a renewed international focus on the nation and its civil conflict.
Freedom House rates Syria as “not free” noting that conditions even prior to the 2011 uprising and subsequent civil war were, at best, abysmal. It earned the worst possible ratings of seven in both the political rights and civil liberties categories. Conditions since the 2011 uprising have only deteriorated, and civil freedoms are restricted under the fear of violence. Freedom House has also expressed concern over rising sectarian tensions and massive displacement.