In my own name
A letter to the reader.
6 MAY 2025
Dear reader,
My name is Muzna Alnaib. You used to know me as M Yafa, co‑editor of Syria Notes. This is the first time that I can write to you using my real name, without fear for myself and my family, now that the fall of the regime in Syria has allowed us to reclaim hope.
The 25th of March 2011 was a sunny day in Damascus. It was the day I first chanted, Syria wants her freedom — سوريا بدها حرية
Our peaceful protest started in the historic Umayyad Mosque. The chants for a better future echoed through the old market. You could see fear in the faces of the hundreds who were braving decades of repression.
We had reached Al Marjeh Square and the Martyrs’ Monument when the security forces attacked. I remember being frozen to the spot while a young man just a few feet away was convulsing on the ground as three security men used tasers to electrocute him. That day, they used guns, batons, and bare hands to punish the protestors.
And from that day on, I and millions of Syrians have not stopped working for a free and democratic Syria. It is our refusal to surrender hope that has achieved the impossible. We created a strong and diverse civil society. Our aid organisations were on the front lines. Our doctors ran underground hospitals while being bombed. Our White Helmets set an example to the world. Our legal organisations worked to bring war criminals to justice.
We worked, we strived, and then we celebrated the demise of the dictatorship that had kidnapped our country for decades. On the 8th of December, I watched in disbelief as the dictatorship crumbled. A door to a future that I had almost given up on swung wide open. My first instinct was to pack a bag and go back home. However, I was a few weeks away from giving birth to my second child, and travel was not an option. Instead, I watched from afar as the prisons were opened, the country erupted in celebration, and friends and family returned to the country they had been forced to flee.
As I cradled my newborn boy, my brother, a survivor of detention and torture, sent me a voice message from Damascus. He said, “Muzna I am there!” A video appeared on my screen, a dark small windowless room, filthy floor, and a door with a small barred window. He said, “I almost died on this spot.” I asked him later, why did he go to the dentation centre? He said, “I needed to face it to move on and stop living the nightmares.”
In the days following the fall of the regime, families of the disappeared gathered at the monument in Al Marjeh Square to hang pictures of their loved ones, and to seek any information as to their fate. Many feel betrayed over the government’s handling of transitional justice. Crime scenes were neglected, and key evidence was lost. There is still no pathway to accountability. Like my brother, the country needs to face what happened, give voice to the victims, and bring the perpetrators to justice.
The Syrian public sphere is now more alive than ever. Debate is vibrant on the streets and on social media. Civil society organisations are establishing bases in Damascus. But the months since the fall of the regime have also brought worry and trepidation. This is not yet the Syria we want. Democracy, women’s rights, and peace are still in jeopardy.
The coastal killings that started on the 8th of March—which saw at least 1,662 Syrians unlawfully killed—sent shockwaves of trauma throughout the nation. We await the results of the government’s investigation, and we need to see the criminals brought to justice. Violations and sectarian tensions are still a daily reality across Syria.
Women are facing a deterioration of their share of the public sphere, and a shrinking of their roles in government and institutions. Cases of kidnapping and killings of women are reported across the country. Syria is reeling from neglect and corruption after five decades under the Assad regime, and the livelihoods of people are being squeezed further by sanctions. Displaced people are returning to their destroyed cities with no means to rebuild.
If reading this, you too worry about Syria’s future, about the possibility of more war, or of a new dictatorship forming, then let me say, people can’t fight for democracy on empty stomachs.
So, we all know the road ahead is difficult, but we are the same people who fiercely stood against one of the most ruthless regimes, and believe me, we are far from giving up on our dreams.