Interviews with Radwan Ziadeh

In all the revolutions, Arab revolutions, Arab revolts, starts from the question of dignity. In Egypt [Mr. Ziadeh misspoke, the following event occurred in Tunisia], Mohamed Bouazizi [a Tunisian fruit vendor who was extorted and beaten by the government], he was slapped by a police officer. He refused to go with her to the police station. And thus he decided to set himself in fire as a response of the way the security forces dealt with him.

Exactly the same question of dignity in Syria, where some schoolchildren brought some graffiti on their walls in the southern city of Daraa about the downfall of the regime and under the influence of what’s going on in Egypt and in Yemen and in Tunisia, Libya. And the [Syrian President Bashar] Assad regime responded by arresting those schoolchildren, torturing them. They removed their nails and put them in security forces and refused.

Then the question of dignity: Why the Assad security forces allowed – why we should allow for the Assad security forces to do that to our children? To behave like this, this is our right, to feel that we are respectable citizens in our own country. And this is how all the stories begin. This is why the Syrians called their revolution a revolution of dignity and freedom.

Radwan Ziadeh is a Syrian dissident and democracy activist. He grew up in a middle class family in Damascus and became politically active after the death of President Hafez Assad in 2000. Remembering the struggles of his own family growing up, Ziadeh wanted to live in a free country and helped establish the Syrian Human Rights Association, a group dedicated to promoting human rights, in 2001.

Four years later, Ziadeh founded his own organization called the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies. Through his center, Ziadeh acted as an international lobbyist for the cause of Syrian freedom. Speaking at venues like the United Nations Human Rights Council, Ziadeh raised awareness about the human rights abuses being committed by the Assad regime in Damascus. As Ziadeh intensified the spotlight on Syria, the government retaliated by placing a travel ban on his family, effectively imprisoning them in Syria, or stranding those traveling abroad in third countries. In 2007, Ziadeh fled Syria for the United States as the Assad government issued a warrant for his arrest.

Beginning in March 2011, the Syrian people revolted against President Bashar Assad, who had succeeded his father, challenging the government’s control over the country and resulting in a tense standoff between the remnants of the regime and diverse opposition forces. In 2012, Ziadeh seized the opportunity afforded him by the revolution and visited his homeland for the first time in five years. He continues to reside in the United States where he works through organizations like the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies and the Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies to rebuild Syria into a free and democratic society.

Twitter: @radwanziadeh