Reports | 1 11 2016
Peaceful activities did not stop since the beginning of the Syrian revolution, especially in the city of Aleppo. The latest of which was burning tires to disturb the warplanes movement.
These activities have emerged since the beginning of the revolution in Aleppo, and perhaps the most important one was the protests of the university students in the city, which have taken many forms of peaceful movement, to the point that intelligence was scrutinizing the simplest things carried by the students, maybe a pen or a book.
Black cloud
Last month a group of young men gathered in the opposition strongholds in the city of Aleppo, and they were thinking of a way to prevent the ongoing shelling, that is targeting civilians’ lives. To get out with the idea of burning the damaged tires, perhaps that may decrease the shelling on their neighborhoods.
They started trying the idea in some neighborhoods, aiming to form a black cloud over the city, in order to prevent the warplanes from targeting the city. Days later, the idea was able to reach other neighborhoods in western Aleppo that is controlled by the opposition factions, then it spread more widely to be cover Aleppo countryside.
Ahmed Assaf, a media activist in the city of Aleppo, says: "The idea achieved its results, where the neighborhoods of Aleppo were subjecting to more than 50 air raids a day before, but now they are no more than 5 raids throughout the day, and what confirms the success of the idea, is that the Syrian regime started to bomb the neighborhoods using the artillery."
He added: "The idea is successful and continues in the neighborhoods of the city, we can say it is the only way the people have to relieve their suffering and survive during the daily aerial bombardment."
The idea of burning tires came from a phenomenon happened several times in the city, they noticed that when it is rainy or cloudy, then the aviation decreases its missions over the city.
Ahmed Mohammed, a human rights activist from Aleppo, says: "For the peaceful movement done by the children of Aleppo, it is no less important than the armed work done by the opposition factions on the fronts. People there support military action because they have no other choice, either to surrender to the Syrian regime which can hide or execute them."
The youth revolution days
At Aleppo University, and coinciding with the increased peaceful demonstrations against the regime, the protesters there started to prepare for peaceful activities against the regime.
Ali Hamoud, a student in the Department of Arabic Language of Aleppo, said to Rozana: "The mobile phone cameras pose a threat to the life of any student, especially as it was a means of documenting violations committed by the security forces, but only after the intense scrutiny on them, some of the students began using secret cameras placed instead shirt buttons or in pens in order to convey what is happening to the public opinion."
According to Ali, those tactics have caused alerting the security soldiers, which were pursuing any writings or paintings on the walls of the university and university housing in the city.
"Students did not give up participating in demonstrations, as they started using the shoes’ polish, for writing slogans against the Syrian regime on the university walls and within the residential units and rooms, so the security agents began searching for the shoes’ polish and arrest anyone had that item, "Hammond explained.
Antigovernment slogans!
One day, Hamoud saw the security members in the housing unit in Aleppo university, cleaning the words "Down with Assad" on the wall of the unit, and wrote instead about "Down Arour." (Adnan Arour is a Syrian Sheikh who was Inciting the Syrians to go out to the streets at the beginning of the Syrian revolution.)
Those tactics were confusing to the security members, who were following up and erasing the slogans on the wall all the time.
Mohammed Sokari is a university student in Aleppo, who witnessed many events during the Syrian revolution. Once he wrote antigovernment phrases on the walls of “Soulymania” neighborhood, then moved to the opposition strongholds in Aleppo countryside, after the security forced raided the district he lives in.
And no one can talk about the peaceful activities, without mentioning the Sit-ins that used to be held against the Syrian regime in the University of Aleppo, and perhaps the best known was the sit-in that happened in the College Of Medicine condemning the arrest of students, and the other large sit-in in 2012.
Hasan is one of the participants in the sit-ins of Aleppo University, confirms to Rozana: "In the fifth month of 2012 a big sit-in took place by thousands of university students, that was confronted by the security forces who expelled the students from their residential units carrying their bags and gathering on the walls of the campus."
He adds: "the case remains as is until the of the second chapter exams, to allow the female students to return to the housing, as for the male students were strictly prohibited from returning to their units of housing."
The benefits of non-violence activities!
Burning tires campaign was not the first of its kind in terms of the peaceful movement, Citizens of Aleppo have used many peaceful activities before, such as distributing leaflets in the regime strongholds in many occasions, in which they asked people of those regions to support them and they alerted of the danger of staying Assad regime in power.
Many of those who witnessed the events in Syria, depend mostly on the idea of peaceful movement, considering the first two years as the best years of the revolution history, according to them.
Mr. Amin Haji, who followed the developments of the Syrian revolution since its inception said to Rozana: "In my opinion, the peaceful activities have a significant impact on the enemy, no matter how brutal he was, and you can take the peaceful struggle of Gandhi in India as an example, where he was resisting the British occupation, and though Gandhi kept his peaceful resistance until India gained its freedom."