SYRIA: Actress Fadwa Suleiman puts her acting career on hold to join anti-government protesters in Homs

Record ID: 280109

  • Title: SYRIA: Actress Fadwa Suleiman puts her acting career on hold to join anti-government protesters in Homs
  • Date: 22nd December 2011
  • Summary: HOMS, SYRIA (RECENT) (AMATEUR VIDEO OBTAINED BY REUTERS) PROTESTERS IN HOMS WITH MASKED FACES AND T-SHIRTS READING IN ARABIC ''THE FREEDOM GENERATIONS'' PROTESTERS MAKING VICTORY SIGN AND HOLDING SYRIA'S REVOLUTIONARY FLAG EFFIGIES OF SYRIAN PRESIDENT BASHAR AL-ASSAD AND MEMBERS OF HIS REGIME ON A HANGING POLE, AUDIO OF PROTESTERS CHEERING PROTESTERS DANCING, OTHERS B
  • Embargoed: 6th January 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Syrian Arab Republic
  • Country: Syria
  • Topics: Conflict,Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA99EX9NF8GKDV2UEQ9YV8XTPN8
  • Story Text: Syrian actress Fadwa Suleiman abandoned her relatively comfortable life in Damascus to join the ranks of the protesters in Homs who are calling for an end to the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad. She is among the few Syrian artists who have dared to openly oppose the regime. In amateur video obtained by Reuters and shot earlier this month, Suleiman says she has always yearned for freedom.
    ''I have always been against oppression and against the way we were taught at school, against the school uniforms that we wore, I hated it because I didn't feel like a student, I felt like a conscript, I didn't feel free. I used to always dream of freedom, that I was going to finish school and go study theatre.'' Speaking from her hideout in Homs, Suleiman says she is on a mission to prove that the violence in Homs is not the result of sectarian tension, like the government claims.
    ''I chose the city of Homs at a very sensitive moment, it was at the climax of the time when the regime was working through a media campaign to convince people that what was happening in Homs was sectarian. I couldn't take it anymore, I called friends I had in Homs and told them I was coming to Homs because I know and I am sure that there is no such thing, I wanted to prove to the world from Homs that that was untrue and that is what happened and I came and the first protest I took part in was in Al-Bayada.'' Suleiman is from the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, and also the same sect as the Assads. She said the regime was trying in Homs to spread sectarian divisions among the Sunnis, a majority in the country, and the Alawites, a minority.
    ''What the regime is doing to incite sectarian tension is, first, they are isolating the Shiite, Alawite neighbourhoods by setting up buffers and checkpoints and telling the residents of those neighbourhoods that there are Salafis and that the Sunnis are coming to kill them and that 'we are protecting you and these checkpoints are to protect you' and it started carrying out attacks and even sacrifice its own soldiers to that effect.'' Suleiman and footballer Abdelbasset Sarout have both emerged as symbols of the uprising in Homs by leading the protests and helping gather momentum for the cause.
    For her the message is simple.
    "I want to give this message to every person in the world, to revolt against killing and oppression and against politicians who it seems are always against the people," Suleiman, who is in her thirties, said.
    Sources close to Suleiman said she has been disowned by her family.
  • Copyright Holder: AMATEUR VIDEO (CAN SELL)
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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