'Hoping to end what it calls the ongoing bombing of civilians in northern Syria by that country’s government, organizers of a rally held Saturday outside Windsor city hall called on the Canadian federal government and others to speak out.
“We’re doing this protest mainly to show people what’s going on and hope that the Canadian government and other organizations can also speak about this,” said Mohammad Alhammoud, youth leader at the Syrian Community Centre of Windsor.
“Today is the 12th anniversary of the Syrian revolution against the Syrian regime. It started on March 18, 2011.”
As civilians try to rebuild after the devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake in February that killed at least 54,000 people in Turkey and northern and western Syria, Alhammoud said the Syrian government is bombing the north.
He said Syria’s northwest region is controlled by the Free Syria Army, “a group of armed forces that came together to protect the people,” though the government continues to bomb those areas.'
Dr Amira Abo el-Fetouh:
'On the twelfth anniversary of the wounded Syrian revolution against which those closest to it conspired, the Syrian butcher fled to his protector and master, the de facto president of Syria, to escape from the memories of the people's revolution that almost overthrew him and his corrupt family. The butcher of Syria, Bashar Al-Assad, was on the verge of being overthrown if it were not for the Russian intervention that saved him from falling, instead preferring Syria to fall into the hands of the Russian occupation and to sit on Syria's ruins, rubble and wreckage, instead of following in the footsteps of the oppressors before him.
The meeting between the butcher Bashar Al-Assad and the criminal, his protector Vladimir Putin, pains of the Syrians, both those who remained under his rule and became, thanks to his policies, one of the poorest people in the world, those outside his control in northern Syria, whom he is still targeting with bombing, threats and assassinations, or refugees in neighbouring countries who suffer various forms of violence, racism and abuse. This is in addition to the threats made by the authorities of these countries to forcibly return them to the fascist authority they fled!
Bashar divided Syria into three governments and, with his loss of power, he lost his legitimacy to represent the Syrians after he killed nearly a million Syrians and displaced more than half of the Syrians. He also refused the Arab mediations at the height of the revolution's victories and, instead, resorted to Iranian and Russian forces and militias. This marginalised Syria from the Arabs and isolated it from its Arab, regional and international surroundings.
The butcher, Bashar, has stated that he would welcome the presence of more Russian forces in Syria, and that their presence "should not be temporary", meaning that he is explicitly calling for an eternal occupation of his country. This statement is a public acknowledgement of his régime's fragility, which cannot survive without begging foreign forces to protect it.
The Syrian killer was not the only one who trembled in fear of the revolution. He was joined by all of the kings and emirs of the rest of the Arab countries. They feared that their people would be infected with the desire of freedom, dignity and democracy and that the winds of change would reach them, prompting them to attack their thrones and overthrow them all. They immediately allied themselves with the Zionist enemy, which was also disturbed by the revolutions, especially in the surrounding countries, which were its border guards, and they formed a centre in the UAE from which the counter-revolutions would be launched against all the countries that witnessed the Arab Spring. They turned it into a violent autumn, especially in Syria, in order to intimidate anyone who would dare to organise a protest or even think of it to demand freedom, democracy and a decent life!
The Syrian revolution is the greatest Arab revolution ever. Never in history has a nation made such sacrifices as the Syrian people made during their revolution that everyone conspired against, in order to abort and attack. All of the world's hyenas preyed on Syria's wounded body to take what they could for themselves and flee with their spoils, leaving it to drown in its blood.
The oppressed Syrian revolution was abandoned by all those who called themselves "Syria's friends" and, instead, they claimed their share of the spoils. If only the Syrians had remained reliant on God, chanting what they said at the beginning of their revolution, "We have no one but God", and did not give themselves to countries who claimed to support them, and provided them with money and weapons until they became captives carrying out their orders. However, they ultimately betrayed them and stopped their victories for the sake of regional calculations and the interests of their countries, which was the case in Daraa, Aleppo, Homs and Hama.
When we recall the memories of that wounded revolution in which the Syrian security forces were unable to disperse the demonstrations, despite the hail of bullets they were firing from their guns, after which the army descended with its armoured vehicles and tanks, killing thousands of martyrs. We see that this is where the course of the peaceful revolution that lasted more than six months, shifted to an armed revolution defending its people. The Syrian authority itself helped shift this path, as it placed weapons in front of homes, on the streets and in cafes, and released Islamists from prisons in order to transform the scene of the revolution and the uprising of the people everywhere across Syria, into a completely different scene that it planned with great cunning and calculation.
The régime turned the popular revolution, which included all groups of the Syrian people, and impressed the world and they sympathised with it into a war against terrorism, claiming that those leading these protests were armed terrorist groups, matching the international tune sung by the West, so that it would side with it and support it, especially after the rebels managed to make incredible victories against Assad's army and liberated many cities, taking them out of the control of the Assad régime. In the beginning, the régime resorted to Hezbollah militias and some of the Shia militias in Iraq and Afghanistan to help it in its war against its people and, when it failed to terminate the revolution, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard descended with its weight under the leadership of the criminal Qasem Soleimani and burned and destroyed entire villages, killed thousands of Syrians, and displaced thousands of Sunni Muslims, turning it into a Sunni-Shia war. Despite all of this, they could not stop of the revolution, and the Assad régime became doomed to fall had it not been for the Russian military intervention, which shifted the balances on the ground, with its planes and missiles that brought to mind the scene of its war on Chechnya and the scorched earth policy, that it also applied in Syria. Meanwhile, the killer Bashar's régime used chemical weapons and explosive barrels against the Syrian people who died under the rubble.
With the entry of Russia, the balance began to tilt in favour of Bashar's régime and the liberated cities began to fall, one after the other and, while the régime had controlled only 20 per cent of the area of Syria, it now controlled about 80 per cent of it. The revolution was confined to Idlib, and revolutionaries from other cities flocked to it after international interventions, understandings, and agreements between Russia and Turkey. however, Idlib has not yet been spared the crimes of Bashar's militia and the continuous raids by the Russian occupier despite the agreements.
This is the story of the Syrian revolution in a nutshell; the story of the struggle of a great nation which fought for its freedom and dignity and sacrificed everything it hold dear. They sacrificed over 2 million martyrs and wounded, and over 10 million Syrians were expelled from their homeland and their homes.
The Syrian revolution is a revolution that revealed the treachery and betrayal of those closest to Syria and their own people, but the story is not over yet and the ending has not yet been written. Revolutions are like wars, they have rounds and battles, until the final hour arrives and the curtain falls. Do not be fooled by the killer Bashar remaining in his position until now, as the embers of the revolution are still burning in the conscience of every free Syrian, as they wait for the moment these embers ignite. It is only a matter of time.'
