From left to right: Ghiath Matar, Rami Hennawi, Bassel Khartabil (Safadi). Last week Rami Hennawi’s family received the news from Syrian authorities that their son and partner died in prison and they can collect his body. Rami was a pacifist leftist young activist who was detained in 2012. Five years he spent in the most inhumane conditions in one of Assad’s torture houses.
Rami came from Sweida, a majority Druze city under regime control and generally considered pro-Assad. But in fact, the underground resistance against Assad in Sweida is strong. If anything, localsin Sweida remembered the anti-colonial hero Sultan Basha al-Atrash, leader of the 1925 Great Syrian Revolt, and on several occasions congregated in front of his statue to voice their opposition against Assad. This is why the Syrian regime is very wary of the underground opposition from Sweida.
According to one of my sources from the area, at the moment, Sweida inhabitants are under repression by many different factions of pro-Assad shabiha (thugs): killing to steal motorbikes, raping at random, terrorizing the local girls and women. Even in schools, teenagers are killed in fights. There is a sense of lawlessness, and those who are supportive of the regime benefit from this situation. Those who now legally carry weapons in Sweida, have a history of violence and are able to commit all the illegal activities they want because no one is stopping them.
