Civil resistance to extremism in Idlib

Idlib protesters calling for the release of detainees, with posters of the Douma Four. Armed group Jaish al-Islam are widely held to be responsible for the 2013 Douma Four kidnapping.
Julia Taleb

This article is included in the Autumn 2018 issue of Syria Notes.

For the past five weeks, thousands of people have been demonstrating every Friday in communities across Idlib province, northern Hama and Aleppo provinces. ‘We will stay in the streets until we bring the revolution back on track—a call for rights and freedom,’ said Ahmed, one of the participants in Marat al-Numan demonstrations. He asked to remain anonymous fearing retaliation from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, an armed group formed by the former al-Qaeda-affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. ‘We will kick the terrorists out, so the regime cannot use their presence as a pretext for an attack.’

Read the full article online at Waging Nonviolence.



Lawyer Yaser al-Saleem at a demonstration in Kafranbel on 21 September, holding a sign calling for the release of people kidnapped by ISIS in Sweida, and accusing the Assad regime of complicity in ISIS attacks on Druze people in southern Syria. The following day, Yaser al-Saleem was arrested by the jihadist armed group HTS.