Graffiti teenagers who lit Syrian uprising brace for Daraa attack
“Y our turn, doctor.” Seven years after scribbling the anti-Assad slogan claimed to have sparked Syria’s uprising, activists then rebels Moawiya and Samer Sayasina are bracing themselves for a regime assault on their hometown of Daraa.
They were 15 when they and friends, inspired by the Arab protests they saw on television, daubed a groundbreaking message on one of the southern city’s walls in the spring of 2011.
“We’d been following the protests in Egypt and Tunisia, and we saw them writing slogans on their walls like ‘Freedom’ and ‘Down with the regime’,” says Moawiya, now 23.
“We got a can of spray paint and we wrote ‘Freedom. Down with the regime. Your turn, Doctor’,” referring to President Bashar Al Assad, a trained ophthalmologist.
Within two days, troops stormed their homes and detained the boys, who are unrelated but share a common family name.
“They tortured us to find out who had provoked us to write it,” Moawiya says.
The teenagers’ detention prompted angry protests demanding their release in what many say was the spark to Syria’s nationwide uprising.
“I’m proud of what we did back then but I never thought we’d get to this point, that the regime would destroy us like this,” Moawiya says.
“We thought we would get rid of it.”
The words that sparked the revolution more than seven years ago are no longer visible today, covered up by black paint.
Samer, also 23, remembers emerging from detention in March 2011 to find his whole country in uproar against the government.
“We were in jail for a month and 10 days,” he says. When we got out we saw protests in Daraa and all over Syria.”
Violently smothered, the demonstrations evolved into a conflict that has since killed more than 350,000 people and displaced millions from their homes.
“In the beginning I was proud of being the reason for the revolution against oppression,” Samer says. “But with all the killing, the displacement and the homelessness over the years, sometimes I feel guilty. Those people who died or fled, all this destruction — it all happened because of us.”
In the first months of protests, troops rounded up dozens of people in Daraa, including Hamza Al Khatib, 13.
His family say he was tortured to death before he became one of the early symbols against the Damascus regime’s brutal repression. With protests turning into armed conflict and rebels seizing territory, Moawiya and Samer took up arms in 2013.
But the rebel movement has since fragmented and suffered devastating blows, with the regime and Russian support retaking more than half of the country.
Last month, the army regained full control of Damascus for the first time since 2012, and Mr Al Assad has now turned to the cradle of the uprising.
In a recent interview, he gave Daraa’s rebels two options – a negotiated withdrawal or face a fully fledged attack.
But the young men who first demanded he step down remain determined to fight, as they once wrote, until the regime falls.
“The regime’s threats of entering Daraa don’t scare me,” Moawiya says. “Assad’s regime may have weapons, but so do we. The only difference is he has warplanes and we have God Almighty.”
He refuses any settlement for Daraa like those that have preceded it for the opposition to leave other parts of Syria.
“I’d prefer death to Bashar Al Assad’s reconciliation,” Moawiya says.
Going out on patrol, he swaps his civilian clothes for grey military-style trousers and a black jersey. He moves between destroyed buildings with sandals on his feet, a Kalashnikov in his hand and his eye trained on the horizon for any movement.
Moawiya and Samer lost many friends to the war, including classmates who became their cell mates in jail.
“We were a group of young guys,” Samer says. “Some are dead now. Some fled. Some are still fighting.”
Moawiya also strikes a nostalgic tone: “We grew up on revolution, on weapons and on fighting.
“We started to lose friends, to bury them with our own hands. We grew up on war and destruction.
“My opinion of the revolution hasn’t changed. For us, the revolution continues. When I get married and have a son, I’ll tell him what happened to me.
“I’ll teach him to write on the wall whenever he sees injustice — not to be afraid of anyone and to write it all.”
We were a group of young guys. Some are dead now. Some fled. Some are still fighting SAMER SAYASINA Syrian fighter