'Your Turn Next, Doctor': How Teen Mouawiya Syasneh's Anti-Assad Graffiti Sparked Syrian Civil War In 2011
Date
12/9/2024 12:00:47 AM
(MENAFN- Live Mint) Syria Civil War: Mouawiya Syasneh was just 14 when he sprayed anti-government slogans on his school wall in Deraa, Syria. It was February 2011, and he could never have imagined that such a minor act would spark a full-blown civil war.
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“If we had known what would happen, we'd never have written that graffiti,” said Mouawiya Syasneh in The Boy Who Started The Syrian War, a Al Jazeera documentary that tells his story.
“We saw what was happening in Egypt and Tunisia,” he told Al Jazeera, referring to the Arab Spring.“So we got together at school, took some paint and sprayed the walls. We wrote on the school wall, 'Your turn next, Doctor (Assad).' A few days later the police saw what we'd written and rounded up the boys in the neighbourhood.”
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Mouawiya's three accomplices were arrested by the Syrian police, together with a dozen other suspects. Mouawiya was arrested at home at 4am and driven away in handcuffs. He was detained for 45 days and tortured.
“The electric shock treatment was the worst,” he told Al Jazeera.“They took me to the bathroom and it was really wet and they would turn on the shower. They ran the current through the water and onto my back. I felt the shock wherever the water went.”
When the fathers of the Syrian children tried to find out what had become of the boys, they were told,“Forget those children; go home and make some more. If you can't manage, send us your women and we'll make more for you.”
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