Syria

On 14 September, instead of launching air strikes on Damascus, US president Barack Obama was forced to agree to a Russian plan for disarming Syria’s chemical weapons under the supervision of a UN agency, the organisation for the prohibition of chemical weapons (OPCW). The resolution of the Syrian chemical weapons crisis by diplomacy was a triumph for what the New York Times in…

A demonstration in the city of Banyas, Syria on the 'day of rage' on 29 April 2011. Photo: Syria Frames of Freedom

Despite the civil war and the threat of US military intervention, the nonviolent movements that began the Syrian uprising continue to struggle for social change – and for a ceasefire.

‘Nonviolent civil resistance started this’, Mohja Kahf of the Syrian Non…

In September, PN interviewed Moscow-based journalists Marina Darmaros and Wissam Moukayed, makers of a short documentary film Transition, which exposes the extensive use of cluster bombs by the Syrian regime and the hopelessness of the people living in Azaz camp, in Aleppo.

PN: Why did you decide to make a documentary about Syria?

Marina Darmaros: I’ve been living in Russia for six years, and Wissam for more than seven. We decided to spend money from our own…

Daily reports of carnage in Syria make the early months of nonviolent popular uprising there seem like distant dreams of another land. Yet the broad-based Syrian movement began determined to follow a strategy of nonviolent resistance.

Haytham Manna is external spokesperson for the Syrian National Coordination Body for Democratic Change (NCC), itself a coalition of some 15 Syrian leftist political groups. In the second week of then-peaceful protests, back in March 2011, he launched ‘…

As an anarchist it wasn't easy for me to be among Jihadists, but for some reason, it wasn't the same treating them as a doctor.

From the first moment I entered the hospital where I was working I was clear that I would treat anyone who needed my help, be they civilians, or fighters from any group, religion or sect. I was determined that no one would be mistreated inside that hospital, even if they were from Assad's army.

It is true that not all the free army militants are…