Bayan al-Hinnawi, who spent years behind bars in Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, joined crowds within the heartland of the Druze minority on Friday to rejoice the president’s fall, “a dream” come true for the previous prisoner.
A whole bunch of individuals descended on Sweida’s primary sq., singing and clapping in jubilation, simply days after Islamist-led rebels took the capital Damascus, sending Assad fleeing.
The Druze-majority metropolis in Syria’s south has been a focus of renewed anti-government demonstrations over the previous 12 months and a half.
On Friday, residents waved Syria’s pre-Assad flag of white, inexperienced and black with three stars, and raised olive branches in an indication of peace.
A few of them have misplaced relations in the course of the anti-government rebellion that started in 2011 and spiralled into civil battle. Others, like Hinnawi, had languished in jail beneath the Assad household’s five-decade rule.
“It was a dream,” mentioned 77-year-old Hinnawi of Assad’s ouster.
Many years in the past, a couple of years after Hafez al-Assad seized energy — which he later handed over to his son Bashar — a 23-year-old Hinnawi was jailed.
He was launched 17 years later.
The grey-haired man mentioned he had “dreamed that at some point the regime would fall”, however didn’t consider that he would dwell to see the day.
“It is a fantastic sight. No person may have imagined that this might occur”, he mentioned.
– ‘Dignity’ –
However his pleasure was incomplete, remembering the various who’ve died in jail.
“I want that those that died after I was imprisoned in Mazzeh or Saydnaya may see this scene,” mentioned Hinnawi.
Since Assad’s fall, insurgent forces and residents have damaged into each detention centres, liberating political prisoners and looking for long-missing family members.
Activists and rights teams say the Assad authorities tortured and abused inmates at each amenities.
“I acquired out after I was 40, I missed out of my entire life,” mentioned Hinnawi, who served within the Syrian military earlier than being jailed.
Recalling torture behind bars, he mentioned that “no oppressor in historical past has performed what they did to us.”
Since Sunday, the ousted authorities’s safety forces had been nowhere to be seen in Sweida, and the workplace of Assad’s Baath social gathering has been deserted, as have military checkpoints on the street to Damascus.
Native armed males are current, however not the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham which spearheaded the insurgent offensive towards Assad.
Siham Zein al-Din, who misplaced her son in 2014 after he defected from the nationwide military to hitch insurgent fighters, mentioned he had “sacrificed his life… for freedom, for dignity”.
The household was nonetheless looking for Khaldun’s stays, mentioned his 60-year-old mom.
Like her son, some members of the Druze group took up arms towards Assad’s forces in the course of the battle.
– A brother’s congratulations –
The Druze, who additionally dwell in Lebanon, Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, make up about three p.c of Syria’s inhabitants, round 700,000 folks.
Past defending themselves from assaults within the areas the place they dwell, Syria’s Druze largely stayed on the sidelines of the civil battle.
Many managed to keep away from obligatory conscription since 2011.
Residents of Sweida have lengthy complained of discrimination and the dearth of fundamental providers.
Many buildings within the metropolis are constructed from black volcanic stone that may be discovered within the space, and its roads have fallen into disrepair.
Sheikh Marwan Hussein Rizk, a non secular chief, mentioned that “Sweida province has been marginalised” for many years, with most of its residents residing in poverty.
However, surrounded by the joyful protesters, Rizk mentioned higher days could also be coming.
“At the moment, we glance to the longer term and ask for a serving to hand… Our hand is prolonged to all Syrians.”
Subsequent to him, resident Hussein Bondok held up a poster of his brother Nasser, a journalist and opposition activist who was final heard from in 2014 when he was arrested.
Bondok, 54, mentioned he believes his brother was seemingly killed beneath torture in one in all Damascus’s prisons.
Nasser struggled for freedom, Bondok mentioned.
“I wish to congratulate him now, as a result of the seeds he had planted along with his brothers-in-arms has develop into a tree.”
