Luca Bruno/AP/Press Association Images. All rights reserved.At the beginning of the summer of 2016 I participated in a sit-in against the ongoing siege of the Syrian city of Darayya in the Hague. The sit-in was organized by Het Syrische Comitè (Lagnalida ҅am al-thawra al-suriyya fi Holanda), a non-profit organization based in the Netherlands that supports the Syrian opposition against the regime of Bashar Al-Assad.
As I was walking around Het Plein, where the sit-in was staged, I couldn't help but notice that the majority of the banners had 'the martyrs' written on them. Most were portraying scenes of violence perpetrated toward the inhabitants of Darayya.
I turned to a man carrying one of the banners to ask him if he knew the name of the artist who had painted them. After pointing to the artist, he asked me where I was from. "Italy," I replied. "Ah, you have Regeni," he commented, smiling in dismay, then added, "We have thousands of Regeni in Syria."
