We came to know Assad, his oppression and his friends in Hama

The inhuman dimensions of the heavy oppression and despotism lived under the tyranny of the 61-year Baath and 54-year Assad Nusayri regime in Syria have been laid out before the eyes of the whole world since December 8. When the entire Syrian people joined, with great exuberance, the freedom of which they had been deprived, as if emerging from the Sednaya dungeon, it was seen once more under what kind of oppression Assad had held this society and how he had deprived it of its liberty. Today, because it has been rid of Assad, the people, with the displays of joy they show, also shed light on the pitch darkness the country lived through in the past.

In fact, there were already sufficiently serious testimonies, information and documents about what kind of criminal the Assad Regime was even before 2011. But even the blood of 1 million of its own people, perhaps as many disappeared in prisons or torture centers, and 12 million of its citizens displaced within or toward the interior of the country, was not enough to spoil some people's boundless good faith toward the Assad regime.

True, those who insistently did not spoil that good faith did not spoil their spoiled intentions even in the face of the images that emerged from Sednaya and other prisons after December 8; perhaps they fell silent only for a while. Even when they chanced to open their mouths, not the slightest understanding word came from their tongues about what so many oppressed people had suffered. They kept saying that Assad should be seen as a normal head of state, and the regime he ran exactly like a mafia-gang as a normal state. Even without seeing what kind of salvation the regime change in Syria, embraced, joined and celebrated by the whole people with great exuberance, had brought, they kept feeding their fantastical conspiratorial delusions with questions such as "was it worth all this suffering?" or "who benefited from this regime change?"

In fact, the dimensions of the Assad regime's oppression in Syria were sufficiently recalled, long before the 2011 process began, by the experiences and memories of the events that had taken place in Hama 43 years earlier. After the massacres and crimes against humanity it committed in Hama in 1982, every day and every hour that the Assad regime spent in power is a heavy burden of sin to be written to the account of those who supported it.

In fact, the criminal character that from the 2011 process onward drove Assad to this savagery and these crimes against humanity had drawn its lesson and its road map in this matter from Hama: to terrorize and to kill under torture until it stopped them, silenced them, until it made the rest obey and fall into line.

We knew the Assad regime from Hama, and also some countries that supported these oppressions of his, for example Iran's Sasanid expansionism painted with a sectarian sauce instead of Islamic revolutionism. Yesterday was the first anniversary, after the December 8 Syrian Revolution, of that great slaughter in Hama. To understand better the meaning and value of this revolution, more light must be shed on the darkness of the Assad regime, and in particular Hama must be remembered better.

It is one of the most savage crimes against humanity of the 20th century, in which at least 40 thousand people were massacred in a week or two with an aggression, committed by the regime against its own people, hard to believe. Its account, unfortunately, was never settled. Its file was not even opened. Moreover, before and after those massacres, being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was targeted in the massacre, was by itself grounds for execution, and being a sympathizer was grounds for life imprisonment without question in dungeons of the Sednaya type.

The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, the target and first victim of this event, issued an official statement yesterday on the anniversary of the Hama massacre. I am conveying the declaration, which also contains important information, verbatim:

"In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

The history of a regime in which hatred, hostility and aggression reign is full of massacres, violations of human rights at every level, and the destruction of civilization.

In Syria's modern history, this bloody picture has continued since March 8, 1963, and the free, honorable Syrians steadfastly sail the ship of revolution. Victory and dominion are from God, and thanks are due to Him alone.

The city of Hama has always been a pioneer in the struggle against oppression, has inflicted heavy losses on the enemy, and has been a symbol of patience.

A historian who wants to document history fairly will be obliged to write a "Gulag" encyclopedia describing the massacres that the criminal gangs committed against our Muslim, free people.

Despite all the terrible events that took place behind the dungeons of Jisr al-Shughour, Sarmada, Aleppo and Tadmur, the Great Hama Massacre, with its multifaceted destructive effects, is the most horrifying, the most deeply scarring and the widest in scale.

The facts show that in a few days approximately forty thousand martyrs were savagely massacred by criminals whose history is full of treachery, despotism and oppression.

According to the accounts of the massacre's survivors, they placed them under their boots and crushed them!

We will not go into the details of this terrible oppression at length. For its place is human rights reports. But we want to make this anniversary an occasion for admonition and remembrance. Let us not be deceived and let us not err! Hafez Assad and Bashar Assad were only individuals; if they had the chance today, whoever stood in their place would repeat the same massacres. For the Hama Massacre was neither the first nor the last; many massacres took place before and after it.

No free Syrian should be taken in by false promises and deceptive slogans.

This is the first great lesson!

The second and most important lesson is that this blessed revolution, whose victory we declared on December 8, 2024, is the cumulative victory of every cry that all Syrians raised against oppression.

From Aleppo's Mashariqa Quarter to the Jisr al-Shughour massacre, from the small and large slaughters of Hama to the blood and cries of the oppressed in the Tadmur and Saidnaya prisons, all these sufferings have laid the stones of this victory.

This victory was won by the widowed wives of the martyrs, by those who raised their voices against oppression, and by the courageous hearts who set Syria ablaze on the day Ibrahim Khalas wrote, "God, the religions, Islam and Christianity are toys mummified in the museums of history." On that day the Umayyad Mosque was stormed with tanks, Homs and Hama rose up, the bazaar in Aleppo shut down and everyone sang this anthem:

*"We rebelled in the way of God, to raise the banner...

Either religion will regain its former glory or our blood will flow!"*

*O free Syrians... Heirs of the blood of the martyrs!*

We write this declaration to remind: In our sharia, guardianship of blood is individual. The one who undertakes the greater guardianship must allow those who are direct owners of the blood to exercise their right of retribution. This right must not be left to anyone's pardon.

Every Syrian citizen has the right to record violations against his property, honor and blood and to cry them out in an atmosphere of freedom.

In this framework, we call on all our citizens to carry out systematic work to document the crimes committed against our people for sixty years. And we invite them to declare this black day of February each year a symbolic day on which all the massacres and the nameless heroes are commemorated."