Syria s Rebels and The Disappearance of Razan Zaitouneh eaworldview.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from eaworldview.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Protesters at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. waving the Syrian rebel flag. November 25, 2019. Photo by Miki Jourdan / Flickr
The cycle of protests that collectively became known as the “Arab Spring” were triggered by a desperate event outside a government building in the small Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid in late December 2010, when Mohamad Bouazizi set fire to himself in an act of protest.
Mass demonstrations followed across Tunisia and quickly ricocheted across the Middle East and North Africa expressions of young and old, men and women asserting their right to a life of dignity.
By early February, huge mobilizations had forced Tunisian and Egyptian dictators Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak to resign. However, it’s a long road from regime change to social transformation as would become clear over the following years. And even such a preliminary victory would prove elusive for other countries in the region.
The Salafist and the human rights activist
A year ago, four Syrian human rights activists were taken from a suburb of Damascus. Among them was the well-known lawyer Razan Zaitouneh. The kidnapping illustrates the fatal turn the Syrian revolution has taken, partly due to the West s inaction, writes Kristin Helberg
A pale woman sits in front of a beige curtain. Her blonde curls are tied back, her blue eyes look tired. It is 4 December 2013, six days before the kidnapping, and this English-language video may be Razan Zaitouneh s last message to the world. Eastern Ghouta, the area immediately to the east of Damascus, where she now lives, is being bombarded daily and has been completely cut off for months. Twenty-three children have already died of starvation.