I'm Katie Paul, a freelance journalist based in Beirut. I was previously employed here. I worship cats and gorge frequently on blueberries. I'm on Twitter. My homepage is here. This site been quiet for the past few months, but it's about to get active again. Stay tuned.
Friends back home have been writing me to ask what is going on in Syria. As of this morning, I still thought the protests would probably fizzle after some concessions by the government, but what happened in Daraa today appears to be very bad. Rumors are everywhere, while the country’s reliable journalistic eyes and ears are disappearing into prison, including those of a friend. Some say 6 died today, some say 9, some say 13, some say 31, some say 150. Al Jazeera’s coverage was heroic in Egypt, but here can barely be called reporting. In addition, it’s hard to get a feel for whether or not fears of sectarianism are founded when different groups are so willing to exploit them for political purposes. Meanwhile, on the streets of Damascus, the honk squad is back.
The Syrian Human Rights Monitoring Centre said journalist, writer and activist Louay Hussein was arrested yesterday after a raid on his home in the Damascus district of Sahnaya. A political prisoner from 1984 to 1991, Hussein had issued a call on the Internet for solidarity with the demonstrators in Deraa who were the victims of a heavy-handed crackdown last weekend.
Employees of Orient TV, a privately-owned satellite TV station that broadcasts from the United Arab Emirates, have been threatened by senior Syrian security officials because of its coverage of the anti-government demonstrations in Deraa and other cities. The station also interviewed opposition figures. Reporters Without Borders has been told that three employees resigned after getting threatening phone calls. As a result of the harassment, the station’s management announced that it would no longer cover events in Syria.
Reporters Without Borders has learned that the journalist, poet and novelist Mohammed Dibo was arrested on the night of 18 March at his home in Al-Annazah, in the northwestern city of Baniyas, where demonstrations were held earlier in the day to demand reforms.
Dibo writes for various newspapers including Jordan’s Al-Dustour and many news websites such as Al-Waan (run by the Association of Rational Arabs), Bab el Moutawasset (MediterraneanGate.net), which covers the various cultures of the Mediterranean basin, Lamp Of Freedom (http://lampoffreedom.com/) and Shukumaku (http://www.shukumaku.com/Default.php).
They’re feeling the love in kite form today over at the Facebook group that’s sprung up in support of the president. The big finish at the tail says: “We love you, our leader Bashar Al-Assad. God, Syria, Bashar, and nothing else.”
Bassam Al-Kady, the head of the Syrian Women’s Observatory, is another Syrian voice worth hearing. He calls for an end to the violence being practiced by both government forces and protestors alike, as well as an end to the sectarian rhetoric weaving its way into discussion of the unrest. You can tell from the issues he address what some of the concerns and fears are here if the protests should continue.
Syria, the pride of the Arab lands, the symbol of resistance, dignity. The land which may be impoverished, yet is a land true to its people, and wears that truth like a badge.
Yet today I witness the collapse of everything Syria used to represent. While others…
The view from my window at about 1:30 a.m. last night. They came around five or six times total (honestly, I lost count). Did the same thing last month before the “days of rage” that never came to be, but these are bigger and louder.
You can see boys hanging out of the car windows holding Syrian flags and framed photos of the president. They’re also chanting “bi rouh, bi dam, nefdik ya bashar” and “allah, suriya, bashar wa bas,” which mean “in soul, in blood, we sacrifice for you, Bashar” and “God, Syria, Bashar, and nothing else.”
Most disturbing video yet out of Daraa, seeming to show protestors being mowed down by machine gun fire from helicopters. I saw it for the first time yesterday, not sure if it was filmed then or Friday.
UPDATE: I may have been speculating too much on that helicopter bit. There were definitely videos of helicopters circling, and this sounds like machine gun fire, but I’m wondering if the link was just a rumor. Nothing confirmed yet. Still disturbing.
Demonstrations expanded beyond the capital for the first time today. This video is from Banyas, on the coast between Tartus and Latakia. According to the title, it shows the city’s sheikh making demands from the balcony of the state security building.
Syrian Interior Ministry on Wednesday announced that while some families were submitting written requests to visit their relatives arrested for different crimes, a number of instigators tried to exploit this event to call for demonstration through uttering some provocative slogans in al-Marja Square.
“Owners of the shops at al-Maraja square, Damascus downtown, rushed and spontaneously confronted the instigators, chanting national slogans and rejecting any attempts to spread chaos and destabilize the homeland,” General Mohammad Hassan al-Ali said in a statement.
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— The official take from SANA (Syrian Arab News Agency). Extra, extra, read all about it.
The only known photo from the sit-in yesterday. It was tweeted out by a Lebanese activist, so I don’t know its origin. But as far as media goes, this may be it. Even the Youtube video I linked to last night has already been taken down.
Just to give a sense of how difficult it was to record anything today, this is the only clip available so far on Youtube. Whoever filmed caught only the pro-government chanting, which means it was later in the game, then clearly had to tuck the camera away from prying eyes.
The kingdom of silence grew a little noisier this afternoon.
Yesterday’s protests were a surprise, the result of kids following Facebook pages without a connection to established opposition groups. In fact, when I told one activist that’d I’d run smack into the protest on my way to meet him, he didn’t believe me at first. The last time anyone tried to organize online, for February 4 and 5, the only people who showed up for the supposed days of rage were mukhabarat—swarms of them. I think most people expected yesterday’s attempt to meet the same fate.
Today, it happened the old-fashioned way, with recognizable activists and targeted demands. Political prisoners’ families wrote a statement asking for their relatives’ release, then planned a sit-in at centrally located Marjeh Square, where the Ministry of Interior is located. Like seemingly every protest, it was scheduled to begin at noon. At the last minute, they decided to gather on a side street a half hour early, which may have been a grave mistake. The early start gave security time to gather itself, while isolating any stragglers who may have joined and given the movement more steam.
Security came prepared. Because they were off the main square, I didn’t even see anyone staging a sit-in, just mustachioed men starting to run and snatch people up. As far as I could tell, their first catch was a woman with long, straight black hair, who wailed and writhed as about five men rushed her over to the other side of the square. Another woman followed shortly thereafter. From there, they simply stuffed people into white vans, shoving them on top of one another. One van I saw must have had 20 people in it, falling on top of one another.
As they cleared each area of the protestors holding photos of detained family members, they moved in with their own protestors holding photos of the president. Journalists for state TV with big cameras perched on their rushed to cover these. One pro-government demonstrator had a little girl perched on his shoulders. She, too, was promising to sacrifice for Bashar. Around the square, the leather jackets stood in clusters, lining the barricaded side streets. There were hundreds, at least. Some are reporting 2,000. Amid each outburst of pro-government fervor from the hired hands would emerge one or two protestors, who then would quickly be carted off.
Most alarming were the arrests of the bystanders. One woman in a white hijab was standing by herself near the entrance to a side street. Three men approached her and opened her bag. Finding a document they didn’t like, they began to grab at her and drag her away from the square. Her brow furrowed worriedly and she began to cry out, then disappeared quickly out of sight.
I don’t really know where any of this goes from here. Some of the biggest cowboys in the activist community—including firebrand Suhair Al Atassi—went down with the ship today. According to one activist keeping track, the tally is now at 36, but I suspect it could be higher. Hopefully, they’ll all be released within a few hours, as often happens, but the most outspoken among them may be in there for a while longer. The opposition in Syria isn’t organized the same way it was in Egypt, nor does everyone in it think that noisy revolution, rather than reform, is the answer. The best case scenario, I think, is for some kind of negotiation between the government and opposition figures in the coming weeks that will fast-track a few key reforms. In the absence of functional, organized opposition groups, the fuel for demonstrations is the adrenaline of these revolutionary times alone, and that is not enough. Against a state in which the army and the party are still very much united, anything more dramatic than that would likely take years of prep time. Perhaps this sounds pessimistic, but I don’t actually think it is. For a president seen by many Syrians as a reformer pushing back against an old guard, this is a moment rich with opportunity.
Damascus is a city that swallows its sounds, and with them, its news. As I strolled through the old city today, just blocks from the most momentous civil unrest Syria has seen in years, the only sensory input I was receiving were the smells of the spice market wafting into my nose. It wasn’t until I reached the end of Straight Street and headed out into the new city that I got my first sign something was amiss.
I turned right and headed toward Hamidiya, then noticed the gaggle of men with leather jackets and dark moustaches up ahead. They were waiting on the sidewalk in front of a mosque—the same mosque that had been in the background of videos from the Hariqa protests a few weeks ago. As I passed in front of them on the opposite side of the street, I started to hear the chanting. I looked right, and there they were: a block of people, stretching the width of the street, pumping their fists, shouting in unison, and advancing straight toward me. At first, I thought they were chanting “bi rouh, bi dam, nefdik ya Bashar,” the same classic pro-Assad line the last set of Hariqa protestors had embraced. In a way they did, but with a twist. Instead of shouting “Bashar,” they’d substituted “Syria.”
I kept walking, lest I get caught up in the thick of it. Shopkeepers stood on their stoops, gawking. When I felt I’d made it a safe distance ahead, I turned back. The protestors made it to the main road, shouting something about freedom. When they waded into traffic, security descended.
Pedestrians peeled off from around me and began running toward the epicenter, apparent insta-cops. A frazzled traffic cop, armed only with his baton and whistle, tried in vain to keep cars moving through the crowded street. Before long, three men in plain clothes rushed past me dragging a man in a patterned vest who looked to be in his 50s. They seemed to be taking him toward Hamidiya. When they reached an open space, they pushed him down to the pavement on his hands and knees. I turned away for a few moments to gauge whether the protestors were coming any closer. By the time I turned back, he was gone.
Minutes later, so were the rest of the protestors. Security had turned them back into the Hariqa market from the main road. Some lingered around the square a block inside, but most dispersed, swallowed back up by the city. All that was left were lines of white vans full of security personnel, and on the street, endless groups of leather jackets.
