Exiled Syrian actress and opposition figure Fadwa Suleiman laid to rest in France

Record ID: 907542

  • Title: Exiled Syrian actress and opposition figure Fadwa Suleiman laid to rest in France
  • Date: 23rd August 2017
  • Summary: FUNERAL TRIBUTE SYMPATHISERS, SITTING ON GRASS IN CEMETERY, INCLUDING SULEIMAN'S FORMER COLLEAGUE, SINGER RACHA RIZK (IN BLACK) (SOUNDBITE) (English) SYRIAN SINGER FROM DAMASCUS NOW LIVING IN FRANCE AND FORMER COLLEAGUE OF FADWA SULEIMAN, RACHA RIZK, SAYING: "She became an icon because she's a woman, first, an artist, second. And she's, she doesn't represent the stereotype that the regime wants to give to the revolution - that it's a revolution of jihadism and extremism." PEOPLE ON STREET IN CEMETERY DURING FUNERAL
  • Embargoed: 6th September 2017 18:45
  • Keywords: actress revolution opposition activist icons of revolution poet exile Fadwa Suleiman Bashar al-Assad
  • Location: MONTREUIL, FRANCE/ HOMS, SYRIA
  • City: MONTREUIL, FRANCE/ HOMS, SYRIA
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace,Military Conflicts
  • Reuters ID: LVA0036VDPNIF
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Syrian actress Fadwa Suleiman, who was one of the faces of the revolution against Bashar al-Assad, was laid to rest in a Paris suburb on Wednesday (August 23).
    She died of cancer in Montreuil last Thursday (August 17).
    Her two sisters and her partner, who live in France, were joined at the funeral by friends, activists and sympathisers mostly from the Syrian community around the Paris region.
    Belonging to the Alawite sect, like Assad, Suleiman was disowned by her family and hunted down by state security forces for her role in anti-government protests, forcing her to flee Syria in 2012.
    She was granted asylum in France, where she continued opposing the Syrian regime and writing poetry.
    In an interview with Reuters in Homs in 2011, Suleiman rejected the idea that the protests were inter-sectarian, and that Homs was a hub of extremism.
    The Damascus-born theatre and television actress emerged as one of the female figures of the rebellion, and one of its recognisable faces, along with Syrian national team soccer star Abdel Basset Sarout.
    She had said in interviews that she aimed to counter the government's attempts to demonise the protesters and paint them as radical Islamists or influenced by foreign powers.
    Suleiman's friends said she had advocated peaceful resistance, and disagreed with the use of arms.
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