Revolution for Freedom & Dignity Enters 8th Year with Greater Hope, Determination & Resolve

Press Release

Syrian Coalition

Media Department

March 15, 2018

Seven years have passed since the Syrian revolution broke out when the Syrian people broke the silence and smashed the walls of fear and intimidation. On that day, Syrians took the initiative in the face of the tyrannical, murderous, terrorist and repressive regime. Syrians have eventually risen up against the regime that treated Syria just as a spoil of war and turned it into private property as well as used it for its own purposes which are hostile to Syrians’ aspirations and detrimental to the interests of the homeland. It is a regime that uses oppressive methods and a security solution to suppress Syrians’ uprising and their decades-long aspirations for freedom. Each time it chose the method of subjugation and intimidation against a people that greatly contributed to the world civilization.

From Damascus to Dara’a in the south and to Aleppo in the north, and from Qamishli in the east to Lattakia in the west, our chants for freedom were and will remain the irrefutable proof that our revolution is popular and peaceful. It is a revolution for all Syrians of all sects and affiliations, a revolution for freedom, dignity and justice as well as for the present and the future.

Instead of meeting the demands of the people, the Assad regime chose killings and security approach, an expression of the criminality and brutality of the regime with the support of the Russian occupation and the Iranian sectarian militias. It is now venting its anger on the people of eastern Ghouta, targeting residential neighborhoods and infrastructure with poison gas and a barrage of barrel bombs, cluster munitions, and incendiary napalm, backed by the Russian air force.

The moral depravity of the regime is not hidden or unknown. It harmonizes with and benefits from the inaction of the international community which evades shouldering its legal and moral obligations. The international community is allowing Russia and the sectarian project of Iran to have the upper hand in Syria and waging a genocide. The ongoing holocaust in eastern Ghouta as well as and in Aleppo and Idlib and Dara’a before it are only a stark example.

Today, the Syrian Revolution enters its eighth year amidst more complexities and challenges but yet with increasing determination on the part of the Syrian people to continue the revolution until victory and the establishment of a civil, democratic pluralistic state. Attempts are underway to take the revolution back to its popular and peaceful roots as well as to combat terrorism and rid our country of foreign forces and militias. This requires that forces of the revolution undertake comprehensive reviews of their course and identify shortcomings and overcome them in a practical plan responding to the challenges. Such a plan is needed to rally forces of the revolution together in a broad front to beat off the challenge of the current stage and meet the requirements of the next one.

All states that are concerned with international peace and security are obliged to urgently intervene and take all necessary measures to save civilians in Syria, enforce UN Security Council resolutions, achieve international justice and punish war criminals, and ensure full and genuine political transition in accordance with relevant international resolutions.

Just like all other human beings, we detest war, murder, oppression, slavery and tyranny. Every new day and year brings with them new hope and increase our determination to rise up, fight on, show creativity and carry on with the struggle without despair.

The revolution that has far overcome all the odds and continued throughout these years, despite the violent external interference, has the strength and stamina to go forward because it expresses the will of a people demanding freedom and emancipation. A revolution that has the people behind it will never be defeated.

May our wounded recover, our detainees be free, and our fallen heroes rest in peace.

Long live Syria and the Syrian people, free and with honor.