Doaa stood outside her home and watched as protesters marched by shouting, “End the emergency law,” and demanding the release of political prisoners, including the boys of Daraa. She stood at the edge of the sidewalk, just outside her front door, as the protesters passed right in front of her, so close that she could have reached out and touched them. The energy and promise of the demonstration exhilarated her. Her whole life she had been told that the people of Syria would never defy their government and that she had to accept things as they were. But as she stood there watching the demonstrators file past her, for a moment she felt the urge to step off the sidewalk and join them, to be a part of what would be a new Syria. Suddenly, to her surprise, the police began to fire tear gas at the protesters and blast them with high-pressure water cannons from advancing big trucks. Her excitement turned to horror as protesters ran screaming in all directions or fell helpless to the ground. The street in front of her home had, in an instant, turned into the site of a confrontation. Horrified, she retreated to the safety of the house.
Later that day, outside the Al-Omari Mosque in the center of town, demonstrators gathered and staged a sit-in, declaring their Friday protest a Day of Dignity and demanding the release of the boys and the resignation of the governor of Daraa. This time, the security forces at the mosque did more than fire tear gas. They opened fire on the protesters, killing at least four people.
These were the first fatalities in a war that would go on to kill over 250,000 and force half the country from their homes—over 5 million Syrians becoming refugees abroad and almost 6.5 million displaced inside the country. Much of Daraa’s population would eventually be driven from their homes, while schools, homes, and hospitals would be reduced to rubble.
Reports of the use of force against peaceful demonstrators in Daraa made international news, and the response from the global community was swift. At the United Nations in New York, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement through his spokesperson stating that the use of lethal force against protesters was unacceptable and urging “the Syrian authorities to refrain from violence and to abide by their international commitments regarding human rights, which guarantee the freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom of the press and the right to peaceful assembly.”
The secretary-general said he believed that it was the “responsibility of the government in Syria to listen to the legitimate aspirations of the people and address them through inclusive political dialogue and genuine reforms, not repression.”
The Syrian government, however, had a different version of events. According to Syria’s state news agency, SANA, “Infiltrators took advantage of a gathering of citizens near the Omari mosque in the city of Daraa on Friday afternoon to provoke chaos through acts of violence, which resulted in damage to private and public property.” SANA claimed that the infiltrators had set cars and shops on fire and attacked security forces.
Despite the government’s violent reaction, demonstrations continued to spread across Syria, as furious citizens demanded reform. On Mother’s Day in Syria, which falls on March 21, SANA ran a story that quoted a source in the Assad administration, stating that a committee had been formed to investigate the violent clashes in Daraa and that they had decided to release a number of “young men.”
The boys from Daraa were given back their clothes and backpacks and taken back to their home, released in the al-Saraya square to a crowd of thousands of cheering demonstrators. But the excitement soon turned to horror as it became clear that some of them, some as young as twelve, had been tortured. Their backs revealed gaping wounds left by electric cables that the guards had used as whips. The boys had cigarette burns on their faces, and some had fingernails missing. Word of the boys’ condition fueled even greater anger. Even in a regime known for suppressing dissent, the torture of children was unthinkable. The boys of Daraa became icons of the budding revolution, and the protests grew.
The government hoped the release of the boys would quell the movement; they sent a senior envoy on behalf of the president’s office to speak to crowds of protesters. He reminded the crowds that the president had set the young prisoners free and that he was aware of the protesters’ demands. The envoy also said that the question of who had instigated the violence that erupted following the arrests was being investigated, but it was believed that the perpetrators were people impersonating security forces. He added that President Assad was sending personal representatives to the families of the dead protesters to offer his condolences.
These gestures satisfied no one, and as the protests raged on, the government accused demonstrators of ignoring these actions in an attempt to overthrow the state. Security forces started entering the city in large numbers. In state media newscasts, demonstrators were charged with being linked to terrorists. Blame was placed on “outlaws” such as President Assad’s estranged cousin Ribal Rifaat al-Assad, who was exiled from Syria as a child and who became a vocal critic of the government, or Abdul Haleem Khaddam, an opposition ex–vice president who had turned on the government in 2005, defected to France, and called for regime change. Assad also claimed that foreign elements were trying to destroy the country.