Activists mourn Raed Fares, ‘one of the last free brave voices’ in Syria
Friends of assassinated pro-democracy champion pay tribute to his courage and leadership
The assassination of Raed Fares, a prominent and witty pro-democracy Syrian in Idlib, sent shockwaves through the activist community, which regarded him as a symbol of courage and endurance.
Fares, 46, was shot dead in his car on Friday along with fellow activist and photographer Hammud Al Junayd, in the town of Kafranbel where he was based.
Although he had survived previous shooting attempts and was aware that militants wanted him dead, Fares refused to leave his home country, convinced that he was more useful within Syria than outside.
“In the past few days, his behaviour had changed,” said Muhamad Al Salloum, a Syrian journalist based in Istanbul and a close friend of Fares. “He knew he was under threat.
“He would be careful to drive different ways to and from work. When we spoke on the phone, I could feel his increasing despair.”
A deal brokered by Russia and Turkey has spared Idlib – which is dominated by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, an alliance led by Syria’s former Al Qaeda branch – from a full-on assault by the Syrian regime.
Fares’ killing is the latest in a series of murders that have decreased the ranks of secular anti-regime activists since the start of the Syrian civil war.
Many of his friends shared an old picture of him and Al Junayd standing in a field and playfully scratching the head of Khaled Al Essa, 24, a Syrian journalist who died of wounds sustained in an attack in Aleppo in 2016.
“This is a glimpse into Paradise right now. RIP Raed, Khaled and Hamod,” wrote Kenan Rahmani, advocacy manager at The Syria Campaign, on Facebook.
“Symbolically, his death speaks volumes. He was one of the last free brave voices left,” said Mansour Omari, a Swedish human rights activist who occasionally worked with Fares.
“Those who control Syria today — Islamist extremists, Assad and Kurds — don’t like dissenting voices.”
Al Salloum agrees: “These past few years, the voice of civil society activists had already been weakened with Assad’s increasing military operations, Russia’s support and the spread of militant groups,” he said. “The death of Fares is a huge blow and will weaken it further.”
After nearly eight years of war, President Bashar Al Assad has retaken about 60 per cent of Syria, while the Kurds control the north-east of the country.
Several of Fares’ closest colleagues say they now fear for their lives.
Prominent journalist Hadi Abdullah told The National that he had gone into hiding. “I think I’m the next target.”
But he will not flee Syria, like hundreds of thousands have done. Abdullah said that he, Fares and Al Junayd had sworn to each other that they would never leave the country.
“We must continue his work to tell the world how much we love him,” he said.
The sole survivor of the attack on Fares, Ali Dandoush, said that rumours had started to spread that he had tipped off the assassins. “I have to be very careful,” said the photographer, who used to live and work with Fares.
At the time of his death, Fares was struggling to secure money for his projects, which included Radio Fresh, initially set up with support from the US.
“Recent history has shown us again and again that peace depends on the existence of a vibrant civil society and free political discourse, a marketplace of ideas where new voices can challenge dictatorship and terrorism,” Fares wrote last June in The Washington Post.
“Without groups like Radio Fresh to provide alternative messages, another generation will take up arms.”
In a war that has become a synonym for extreme brutality, Fares, a former real estate agent, continued advocating for non-violence.
“Take a look, take a deep look, do you see any terrorists?” he tweeted alongside a picture of anti-Assad protesters near Idlib last September.
His pacifism inspired many to follow in his footsteps. “The first time I met Raed, I was with a group of protesters on our way to burn a police station down,” said Abdallah Al Sallaoum, a close friend who worked with Fares in Kafranbel.
“He explained to me why it was wrong and from that moment I followed him.”
But Fares had become more than just a role model. He managed to grip the world’s attention by posting pictures of placards written in English, challenging the West to face the reality of war in Syria.
“Obama, your role in Syria will never be accepted as a mistake like Clinton’s Rwanda,” one read.
“It was a brilliant move,” said Fadel Abdul Ghany, chairman of the Syrian Network for Human Rights monitoring group. “They were simple but smart messages that resonated throughout the world.”
Fares’s satirical video, “The Syrian revolution in 3 minutes”, in which actors dressed as cavemen grunt their way through a simplified timeline of the Syrian war, sarin gas attack included, has more than 120,000 views on YouTube.
From the beginning, Fares’s humorous take on the war stood out. “We wanted to be special. There were thousands of people demonstrating and we were like 50 people in a field,” he told The New York Times in 2014.
Asked what he would do if militants or Mr Al Assad succeeded in killing him, he answered: “I have sons.”
Late on Thursday, two men were shot dead in the north-western Syrian town of Kafranbel. Raed Fares and his friend Hammoud Al Jneid were driving home from a mosque when unknown gunmen opened fire on their car. Unlike many in the restive province of Idlib, Fares’s name was well-known, both locally and around the world. Starting out by photographing protests during the initial Syrian uprisings and circulating the images on the internet, he rose to prominence as an outspoken advocate of democracy.
Always a fierce critic of the Assad regime, Fares took an equally determined stance against Islamist extremists and global powers. His viral videos and acerbically witty protest banners grabbed the attention of the world, promoting the idea of peaceful revolution and highlighting urgent Syrian issues with barbed English-language slogans. These efforts made Fares a high-profile target of groups such as ISIS and Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, now the dominant militant organisation in Idlib. Several attempts were made on his life throughout the Syrian war and in 2014, he survived gunshot wounds to the chest after an attack by masked militants. Far from being a one-man operation, Fares held a powerful belief in the value of collaboration and mentoring. In 2011, he established the Kafranbel Media Centre. Two years later, he launched his most ambitious venture, Radio Fresh. In addition to the station’s immediate remit of reporting independent news to the Syrian people and countering fundamentalist narratives, Radio Fresh had a greater long-term aim.
As he wrote in an article for the Washington Post in June, following the US State Department’s decision to cut the station’s funding: “We provide media training for more than 2,500 young men and women. We are helping them become the citizen-journalists that are so badly needed in Syria.” It is essential, for the the sake of Syrians, that those young trainees continue to give a voice to the voiceless and are galvanised to uphold the messages and values Fares held dear.
For in many ways, Fares was an exceptional man. When militants demanded that Radio Fresh stop playing music, he responded by broadcasting a non-stop schedule of animal noises: birdsong in the morning, bleating goats in the afternoon and croaking frogs at night. His choice of programming was, he stated, a form of resistance to hardline interpretations of Islam – it was also a typically wilful and wryly humorous response. While nearly eight years of grinding violence have forced many similarly minded Syrian activists into exile, Fares remained determined to stay at home, steadfast in the belief that a better world was possible. It is a tragedy that he will no longer be able to play a part in making this long-held dream a reality.