5 February 2020
After last week’s arrest in France of a former “Army of Islam” spokesman, Orwa Khalife recounts the gruesome history of the militia, from kidnappings in the Damascus suburbs to ethnic cleansing in the Turkish border zone.
Douma4
In his fourteenth letter to his missing wife Samira al-Khalil, abducted in Douma in 2013, Yassin al-Haj Saleh writes that he now identifies with his late mother, paying tribute to mothers around the world who bear the anguish of disappeared loved ones.
On the sixth anniversary of his wife Samira al-Khalil’s abduction, Yassin al-Haj Saleh says uncovering the truth about her whereabouts must be an indispensable part of the Syrian cause.
In his thirteenth letter to his missing wife Samira al-Khalil, abducted in Douma in 2013, Yassin al-Haj Saleh pays tribute to those who have given time and energy to promoting her cause.
Yassin al-Haj Saleh’s twelfth letter to his wife Samira al-Khalil, abducted in Douma in 2013, is penned on the occasion of her birthday, “the only day I’ve ever celebrated since your disappearance.”
In his eleventh letter to his missing wife Samira al-Khalil, abducted in Douma in 2013, Yassin al-Haj Saleh ruminates on the temptations of vengeance, and the indispensability of justice.
Five years on from the kidnapping of the ‘Douma 4’ activists, Joey Ayoub pays homage to another Damascus suburb symbolic of Syria’s peaceful, democratic revolution.
In his tenth letter to his missing wife Samira al-Khalil, abducted in Douma in 2013, Yassin al-Haj Saleh recalls their earliest days together.
Will there still be lemons on the tree of our house in Douma next year? wonders this displaced resident. If so, who will eat them?
In his ninth letter to his missing wife Samira al-Khalil, abducted in Douma in 2013, Yassin al-Haj Saleh writes that “a crack in the wall of your dark prison” may now have opened.
Yassin al-Haj Saleh's eighth letter to his missing wife Samira al-Khalil, abducted in Douma in 2013.
In the second of two pieces marking four years since the abduction of the 'Douma 4' activists, Karam Nachar tells the story of Razan Zaitouneh, the "exceptionally" courageous democracy activist who "terrified" Islamists and the Assad regime alike—and paid dearly for doing so.