Interviews with Ammar Abdulhamid

The protest movement is really — it depends a lot in terms of coordinating itself on social networking– on Facebook, on e-mails, on YouTube, on SAT phones and cell phones. So all of this really is working right now.

And it´s despite the fact that there´s a cyber warfare going on, basically there is a special group of people inside Syria empowered by the regime called the Syrian Electronic Army, and they are sort of trying to disrupt this organizing ability of the protestors on the ground by sort of hijacking their accounts and penetrating the discussion groups and sort of monitoring their dialogue, but so far the protestors also have mounted their own group, who is doing the reverse, who is actually hijacking accounts of pro-Assad people and hacking into state-owned websites and run websites.

So there´s a cyber-warfare component going on. But so far, despite all of it, you know, Facebook and social networking is playing an important role really in connecting the protest leaders on the ground and between the protest leaders on the ground on those outside Syria. So this is really major for us.

And even when the Internet is down we try to compensate by that by having routers smuggled in and who´ll use SAT phones basically to link to the Internet. So we are finding ways always to remain connected and to allow for that kind of interaction to happen between protestors inside the country and, you know, inside the country and outside the country.

So that shows you that there is a level of coordination. Despite the fact that when you look at the protest movement, it seems atomized and localized. You know, they are– this suburb is in Damascus and that alley in Hama. They don´t gel together. They don´t come together. But that´s because army troops and tanks are all over the place sort of interrupting that kind of communication or the ability of the protests to sort of merge together.

But they are merging virtually. So they are atomized physically. But they are really merging virtually. And they´re using the Internet to actually be on cue, be on message, be on the same idea, on the same page and exchange ideas and information. So that´s really what´s allowing for a leadership to emerge on the local level but also on the national level.

Ammar Abdulhamid is a Syrian human rights activist who in 2003 founded the Tharwa Foundation, a grassroots organization that enlists local activists and citizen journalists to document conditions in Syria. In response to his activities, the Syrian government subjected Abdulhamid to repeat interrogation and threats. In September 2005, he and his family were forced into exile in the United States. From his home in Maryland, Abdulhamid remains one of the leading bloggers and commentators on events in Syria through the Syrian Revolution Digest.

Follow Ammar Ahbdulhamid on Twitter @Tharwacolamus and on his blog, Syrian Revolution Digest.