(Raqqa, Syria) - “Our families and people in Raqqa, please forgive us. We love nothing more than to enter a bit of joy and hope to your lives, our wish was that our final statement be in the time where the tyrant Bashar al Assad fell, but circumstances are stronger than we are. We ask god for the better of […]

Fighting stopped in Ras al-Ayn (also known in Kurdish as Serekaniye) in the beginning of November after the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), a militia allied with the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), took control of the city and a large number of villages around it. Al-Nusra Front, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and other Islamist groups were […]

By Hazzaa al-Adnan (Kfar Nabel, Syria) - Shadia, a young lady from Kfar Nabel who studies law at Aleppo University, says that her father, a farmer, had to cut down five of the 20 fig trees in their modest orchard so that her mother could cook their meals over firewood instead of gas. “If things don’t get better, we’ll have […]

By Salam al-Saadi (Damascus, Syria) - Abu Nawras faced a difficult decision in June 2013. His chicken farm was not as profitable as it had been before the war, making it difficult to support his wife and four children. After months of losing money, he finally decided to close the farm, move his family to Damascus and open a small […]

Qamishli is no longer the city of either black or white gold, as Syrians used to call it due to its natural oil wealth and cotton fields. The situation has now changed, and most oil wells have stopped working. Companies have pulled out of the Rmeilan field to the east of Qamishli after oil pipelines were broken and stolen, stopping […]

By Abdel Karim Jaafar (Raqqa, Syria) – Thirteen-year-old Mahmoud was excited to return to his eighth grade classes in September in the north eastern Syrian city of Raqqa, after more than six months of closure. “I was so happy to go back to my desk. I missed my classmates and I missed studying,” he said. Mahmoud resumed classes at the […]

Manbij, a city of 72,000 people northeast of Aleppo, is relatively stable compared to other Syrian cities. This stability has turned it into a destination for some of Syria’s internally displaced people, who arrive in search of security, jobs, markets, and education. This is Manbij today through the photographs of Zaid Mohammad. The photos were taken on October 21, 2013.

By Raheel Ibrahim* (Jaramana, Syria) - The anger is clear on the face of Motaz, 34, who works as a waiter in a restaurant as he talks about the opposition rockets and mortar shells that regularly fall on the town of Jaramana in the suburbs of Damascus. “Everyone should know that our patience has begun to run out and that […]

By Ghaith Ahmad (Deir al-Zor, Syria) - The Judicial Sharia Committee in Deir al-Zor was established by Islamist oriented factions of the armed opposition that took control of large parts of the city and its suburbs in the summer of 2012. Officials in the city say journalists are not permitted to name the area where the Sharia Committee’s headquarters is […]

Social media have had a significant role in disseminating information and ideas in the Arab countries that witnessed uprisings against the ruling regimes. These forums, however, have played a limited role in promoting the concept of transitional justice. This short animated feature discusses what social media activists could do to support transitional justice. It also offers advice to activists to […]