' "Black Friday Special Offer" read a banner held by activists in Kafranbel, a small town in northern Syria. "Bring your enemy and come to fight in Syria for free". When the Syrian uprising against the authoritarian regime of Bashar al-Assad began in 2011, Kafranbel protesters displayed eye-catching messages on a weekly basis. "ASSad is the source of terrorism," read another.
Often accompanied by drawings, these witty messages denouncing the brutality of Assad’s regime and its allies made Kafranbel, a previously unheard of town in the Idlib province, famous. "The banners of Kafranbel remain the best witness and expression of the dreams of most Syrians," wrote the Syrian novelist Khalid Khalifa in his foreword to the book ‘Dancing in Damascus’. Thanks to its creativity and wit, the town soon became known as "the conscience of the revolution".
Raed Fares was the mastermind behind the banners. A pro-democracy activist and organiser, he founded a radio station, helped develop a new civil society in the Idlib province and led efforts to draw international attention to Syria’s plight.
But his work to build a free press, empower women and establish the foundation for a democratic society angered the extremist groups that started to proliferate as the war escalated. Last year, on 23 November, Fares and fellow activist Hamod Jnaid were assassinated by gunmen in Kafranbel. But for many activists his legacy will live on.
"Revolutions are ideas, and ideas cannot be killed with weapons," said Fares in a speech at the 2017 Oslo Freedom Forum. Invited to speak about his work fighting for a free and democratic Syria, he told the audience in Oslo that Syrians are victims of two kinds of terrorism. On one hand the Assad regime and its allies, on the other Daesh and other extremist groups.
When demonstrations against the Assad regime spread across Syria, Fares started filming events in his hometown. He recorded hours of footage of protests and the government’s brutal crackdown. At the forum in Oslo he showed a short video of burning houses, scorched earth and several injured in the aftermath of an airstrike in Kafranbel. "What is impossible for me to show you," he told the audience, "is the smell of burnt blood. The smell of body parts, of gunpowder. The smell of 50 years of oppression and pain is carved in my memory."
After the Idlib province was taken from the Assad regime by opposition forces in 2012, Fares started an organisation called the Union of Revolutionary Bureaus. The union ran several projects, from a radio station and a media centre to relief, health and education services and programmes for youth and women’s empowerment.
Radio Fresh, launched by Fares in 2013 with financing from the U.S. State Department, warned residents about incoming airstrikes. "The idea was to warn people to minimise the casualties, but the radio became much more than that," says Abdullah Klido, Radio Fresh’s editor-in-chief. The station started broadcasting news and stories about daily life in the Idlib province.
With the war escalating, documenting and reporting on the Assad regime’s attacks became increasingly dangerous. Mass violence fuelled radicalisation, and soon civil society activists faced the danger of not just regime artillery and airstrikes, but also threats from the fundamentalist groups that started to grow.
Hardline Islamists opposed broadcasting music and women’s voices. To get around the prohibition, Fares and his colleagues started playing animal and nature sounds instead of music, and altered the pitch of women to make them sound like men.
Just a few months after being launched, the radio station was raided by Daesh and equipment confiscated and destroyed. In 2014, Fares was shot by Daesh-linked militants but survived the attack. Despite the many threats and assassination attempts, he continued working. He refused to leave his hometown and to carry a weapon. His struggle was a peaceful one.
"I try to survive, but if I can’t, it’s OK," Fares told the BBC in 2017. "We started the revolution together and were all aware that we faced the same risks. That means my life isn’t more expensive than my friends who lost their lives."
On 23 November last year, gunmen followed Fares and his friend and fellow activist Hamoud Jnaid as they left Radio Fresh’s office in Kafranbel. "It was a Friday, that day I went to the radio station. I was sitting with Hamoud and talking about assassinations because we were receiving a lot of threats," recalls Klido, the radio’s editor.
"Raed and Hamoud left together. We heard shooting in the street, but we hear shooting everyday so we didn’t give it much thought. We only found out about it a few minutes later." Unidentified gunmen riding a van had gunned down the two activists, who died together.
"They were very close friends, they couldn’t live without each other," says Klido. "Hamoud was very brave. When there was an airstrike he was the first one to get there, the first one to assist and then to report the attack."
"Raed was an inspiration to everyone," he adds. "To preserve his memory we have to continue with the radio station and with his work."
Despite the threats and risks involved in working in one of the world’s most dangerous places, activists have vowed to carry on Fares’ legacy. "All of us working in the radio consider ourselves supporters of the revolution. We are fighting for freedom, dignity and justice," says Klido. "And as long as the radio is still working, the idea of the revolution will still be alive."
A few months before his assassination, Fares wrote in the Washington Post about how U.S. funding cuts were threatening the work of civil society activists in Syria, following the Trump administration's decision cut assistance.
"Without funding and support for independent voices like Radio Fresh, the world might witness the birth of another Islamic State in Syria," he warned. Fares wrote about what he saw as his duty to counter the fundamentalist narratives spreading among people who had seen nothing but war and devastation.
With the Syrian war dragging on for nearly nine years, the international community has increasingly lost interest and withdrawn support for Syria. The United Nations stopped counting casualties in 2016, when it was estimated that about half a million Syrians had been killed.
The world’s abandonment and lack of response to war crimes in Syria were common themes of Fares’ banners.
"Is it possible that you are not seeing the children dying here? Is it possible that no one can see?" asks Klido, who has vowed to continue what Fares started despite the financial struggles to keep Radio Fresh on air and the world’s indifference.
According to monitors, bombing by the Syrian government and its allies has killed 1300 people since April this year in the Idlib province. At least 300 children are estimated to have died in the bombardments, which regularly target schools and hospitals.
"Everyone recognised that Bashar al-Assad is a criminal. That he used chemical weapons. But nobody is doing anything," he says. "If you can’t stop the war, at least provide people with protection."
A banner in English lamenting the loss of Fares and Jnaid reads "their assassination was the result of the world’s shameful indifference." But another banner was displayed in Kafranbel in Arabic addressing Fares and Jnaid: "They didn’t kill you," it reads. "You are still among us as a beacon of freedom." '
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