PERSONAL: Syrian who sparked uprising in Daraa celebrates first anniversary after Assad's fall

Record ID: 1984599

  • Title: PERSONAL: Syrian who sparked uprising in Daraa celebrates first anniversary after Assad's fall
  • Date: 19th March 2025
  • Summary: DARAA, SYRIA (FILE - MARCH 26, 2011) (VIDEO OBTAINED BY REUTERS) VARIOUS VIEWS OF DARAA, WITH MOSQUE WHICH WAS STORMED BY SECURITY FORCES VARIOUS OF TORN POSTER OF THEN-SYRIAN PRESIDENT BASHAR AL-ASSAD VARIOUS OF SITE WHERE STATUE OF LATE SYRIAN PRESIDENT HAFEZ ASSAD WAS TORN DOWN AND BURNT DURING PROTESTS VARIOUS OF YOUNG MAN, WOUNDED DURING PROTESTS, IN HOSPITAL BED MONI
  • Embargoed:
  • Keywords: Assad Bashar al-Assad Daraa Sayasneh Syria anniversary graffitis uprising
  • Location: DARAA, SYRIA
  • City: DARAA, SYRIA
  • Country: Syria
  • Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace,Middle East,Civil Unrest
  • Reuters ID: LVA002984818032025RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: In March 2011, Mouawiya al-Syasneh was only 16 years old when he and other children got arrested for writing anti-Assad slogans on their school's wall in Daraa, influenced by a series of anti-government protests that swept across the Arab world.
    "We used to see protests in Egypt and Tunisia, they used to write ‘freedom’ and ‘down with the regime’. Because Bashar al-Assad was a doctor, we wrote the phrase ‘it is your turn doctor’," the 30-year-old said, as he recalled his and others' arrest which then sparked widespread protests against Bashar al-Assad, spiraling later into a civil war.
    The war - in which Western countries, Arab states and Turkey backed the rebels, while Russia, Iran and militias loyal to Tehran backed Assad - became a theatre for proxy conflicts among a kaleidoscope of armed factions with different loyalties and agendas.
    It has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions of Syrians.
    14 years later, Syasneh who said he never left Syria, revisited his childhood school on the anniversary of the Syrian uprising, commemorated for the first time this year after the fall of Assad.
    “We rose up against Bashar al-Assad and overthrew him. This is what we wanted and thank God it happened”, he said.
    Rebels led by now-Syria's interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa's Sunni Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group ousted Assad's government at the end of 2024.
    Assad fled to Russia, leaving behind some of his closest advisers and supporters, while Sharaa's group led the appointment of an interim government and took over Syria's armed forces.
    In the same school where Syasneh and his colleagues got arrested for writing anti-Assad slogans, walls are now covered in graffiti bearing the words 'The doctor fled', in reference to Assad.
    (Production: Firas Makdesi, Kinda Makieh)
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