The protest movement is really — it depends a lot in terms of coordinating itself on social networking– on Facebook, on e-mails, on YouTube, on SAT phones and cell phones. So all of this really is working right now.
And it´s despite the fact that there´s a cyber warfare going on, basically there is a special group of people inside Syria empowered by the regime called the Syrian Electronic Army, and they are sort of trying to disrupt this organizing ability of the protestors on the ground by sort of hijacking their accounts and penetrating the discussion groups and sort of monitoring their dialogue, but so far the protestors also have mounted their own group, who is doing the reverse, who is actually hijacking accounts of pro-Assad people and hacking into state-owned websites and run websites.
So there´s a cyber-warfare component going on. But so far, despite all of it, you know, Facebook and social networking is playing an important role really in connecting the protest leaders on the ground and between the protest leaders on the ground on those outside Syria. So this is really major for us.
And even when the Internet is down we try to compensate by that by having routers smuggled in and who´ll use SAT phones basically to link to the Internet. So we are finding ways always to remain connected and to allow for that kind of interaction to happen between protestors inside the country and, you know, inside the country and outside the country.
So that shows you that there is a level of coordination. Despite the fact that when you look at the protest movement, it seems atomized and localized. You know, they are– this suburb is in Damascus and that alley in Hama. They don´t gel together. They don´t come together. But that´s because army troops and tanks are all over the place sort of interrupting that kind of communication or the ability of the protests to sort of merge together.
But they are merging virtually. So they are atomized physically. But they are really merging virtually. And they´re using the Internet to actually be on cue, be on message, be on the same idea, on the same page and exchange ideas and information. So that´s really what´s allowing for a leadership to emerge on the local level but also on the national level.
Ammar Abdulhamid is a Syrian human rights activist who in 2003 founded the Tharwa Foundation, a grassroots organization that enlists local activists and citizen journalists to document conditions in Syria. In response to his activities, the Syrian government subjected Abdulhamid to repeat interrogation and threats. In September 2005, he and his family were forced into exile in the United States. From his home in Maryland, Abdulhamid remains one of the leading bloggers and commentators on events in Syria through the Syrian Revolution Digest.
Follow Ammar Ahbdulhamid on Twitter @Tharwacolamus and on his blog, Syrian Revolution Digest.
The Syrian Arab Republic originated as a secular, socialist state dominated by the Ba’ath party, an Arab nationalist movement. The state has since evolved into an autocracy headed by a single family and dominated by members of the minority Alawite sect, a branch of Shia Islam.
The Ba’ath Party took power in Syria in a series of coups d’état in the 1960s and 1970s. One of the leaders of those coups, Hafez al-Assad, became president in 1971 and led the country until his death in 2000. Under Assad, Alawites assumed control over the state security forces. In 1982, Assad’s forces stormed the city of Hama to brutally suppress a Sunni rebellion, killing thousands of civilians.
Following the death of Hafez al-Assad, his son, Bashar al-Assad, was elected president by a referendum in which he ran unopposed, officially garnering 97 percent of the vote. He was reelected in 2007, again with 97 percent of the vote.
The Syrian government is one of the world’s most brutal and restrictive. From 1963 to 2011, the government operated under an “Emergency Law,” which suspended many constitutional protections of civil liberties. The government continues to use arbitrary detention and torture against political opponents, and operates through an extensive internal security apparatus, including secret police. The government controls most of the country’s media outlets, and access to the Internet is permitted only through state-operated servers. The minority Kurdish population has been continually discriminated against and repressed.
Influenced by movements in Egypt and Tunisia, large opposition protests took place across Syria in 2011. The government responded with a harsh crackdown. Security forces fired on protestors, killing thousands. The crackdown led the Arab League to suspend Syria’s membership. The Assad regime attempted to appease dissenters through a series of low-level and largely inconsequential reforms in 2011 and 2012. However, the conflict has escalated into full-fledged civil war with both liberal and Islamic militias being formed to fight against the Assad regime. The Assad regime has continued to attempt to defeat the opposition using air strikes and heavy artillery to attack rebel-held neighborhoods. Freedoms of association, assembly, and the press were restricted even further as the government attempted to quell the uprising. Over a million people have been either internally displaced or fled the country as refugees.
In the summer of 2013, it was confirmed that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons to attack civilians. Over 600 people were killed in one such attack in the Ghouta suburb of Damascus using a nerve agent confirmed to be sarin. The Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons drew international attention and resulted in a renewed international focus on the nation and its civil conflict.
Freedom House rates Syria as “not free” noting that conditions even prior to the 2011 uprising and subsequent civil war were, at best, abysmal. It earned the worst possible ratings of seven in both the political rights and civil liberties categories. Conditions since the 2011 uprising have only deteriorated, and civil freedoms are restricted under the fear of violence. Freedom House has also expressed concern over rising sectarian tensions and massive displacement.