{"id":276,"date":"2011-06-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-03T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/?p=276","title":{"rendered":"We are not going to shoot you, we are with you, a Syrian soldier speaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n‘We are not going to shoot you; we are with you’: a
\nSyrian soldier speaks<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\nBy Amnesty International researcher Cilina Nasser in Wadi
\nKhaled, northern Lebanon\n<\/p>\n

\nHe is a 21-year-old soldier and illiterate. But this young
\nman does not need to read and write to know that shooting at unarmed protesters
\nby government forces is wrong.\n<\/p>\n

\nHe was ordered to shoot, refused to do so, and in late April
\njoined protesters calling for the fall of the Syrian regime in Damascus. With
\nthe help of protesters he then returned to Tell Kalakh, his hometown near
\nSyria’s border with Lebanon, and then became one of some 4,000 Syrians from
\nthat area who were forced to flee from their homes in mid-May and to seek
\nrefuge in northern Lebanon. He spoke to me on condition that I do not reveal
\nhis name because of his fear about possible reprisals against his relatives who
\nare still in Syria.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe soldier was formerly based at a military compound in the
\ncity of Homs. In late April, his battalion was moved to Damascus to help quell
\nthe mass protests then taking place in support of demands for reform. He and
\naround 600 soldiers in his battalion were each given a Kalashnikov rifle with
\nseven 30-round magazines, a pistol and a tear gas mask to be used if and when
\nthe riot police fired tear gas at the protesters. They were taken to<\/p>\n

al-Ma’dhamiya in Damascus on a Thursday afternoon in preparation for a
\ndemonstration next day after people had gathered for Friday prayers. The
\nsoldiers were told that the riot police would deal with the demonstration.\n<\/p>\n

\nThat night, however, the soldiers’ commander called them
\ntogether and told them he had received an order that they should shoot
\nprotesters.\n<\/p>\n

\n“He talked about the protesters as if they were after us,
\nthat they would attack us and take our weapons… and that they were armed. He
\nalso said that if people did not protest on Friday, then we should just leave
\nthem alone… I and other soldiers secretly agreed to refuse to shoot at our
\npeople.”\n<\/p>\n

\nI asked the soldier what instructions his commander had
\ngiven and whether, for example, he had instructed his men to fire warning shots
\ninto the air. He said no. He and the other members of his unit were told simply
\nthat they had “an order to shoot.”\n<\/p>\n

\nThe next day, while people were attending Friday prayers the
\nsoldiers, in groups of 10 to 15 led by their sergeants, took up positions at
\nthe corners of streets near and around mosque exits.\n<\/p>\n

\nWhen people came out of the mosque, the soldier said, they
\nstarted chanting: “The people want the fall of the regime” but also called out
\n“silmiye, silmiye,” an Arabic word meaning “peaceful” to stress the non-violent
\nnature of their demonstration.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe soldier said he was standing at a street corner with
\nnine other members of his unit and they watched the protesters who began a
\npeaceful march along the street. He told me that none of the demonstrators were
\ncarrying weapons as far as he could see, yet he and the other soldiers were
\nordered to open fire on them.\n<\/p>\n

\n“The officer gave us the order to shoot when the protesters
\nwere around 15 or 20 meters away from us… but we – in all, five of us soldiers
\n– immediately said we would not shoot and said to the other soldiers present:
\n‘How can you shoot at these people? We will not do that.’”\n<\/p>\n

\nAt this point, the soldier told me, the officer in charge of
\nhis unit ordered: “Shoot at them”, pointing to those who refused to fire at the
\nprotesters, leading to a stand off between the two groups of soldiers..\n<\/p>\n

\n“They cocked their rifles and so did we… but neither of us
\npulled the trigger. We then started pushing each other and scuffled a bit… Then
\nthe officer fell on the ground. We immediately ran in the direction of the
\ndemonstration and held our rifles up in the air so that protesters would know
\nthat we weren’t going to shoot at them. When we were close enough so that they
\ncould hear us, we shouted to them saying ‘We are not going to shoot you. We are
\nwith you.’”\n<\/p>\n

\nMinutes later, however, the shooting began as other
\ngovernment security forces opened fire on the demonstrators. The soldier said
\nhe witnessed several people fall as they were shot, who then were carried away
\nfrom the scene by other protesters. As he continued marching with the
\nprotesters, he saw other soldiers leaving the ranks and joining in support of
\nthe demonstration, despite the risks that they could face for disobeying orders
\nand deserting the ranks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\n‘We are not going to shoot you; we are with you’: a
\nSyrian soldier speaks<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\nHe is a 21-year-old soldier and illiterate. But this young
\nman does not need to read and write to know that shooting at unarmed protesters
\nby government forces is wrong.\n<\/p>\n

\nHe was ordered to shoot, refused to do so, and in late April
\njoined protesters calling for the fall of the Syrian regime in Damascus. With
\nthe help of protesters he then returned to Tell Kalakh<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}