Tens of thousands of Syrians have taken to the streets across Syria to celebrate their newfound freedoms five days after rebels toppled the 54-year long Bashar al-Assad regime.
In the Umayyad mosque in the heart of the old city of Damascus, one of the holiest religious sites in the Islamic world, thousands of people gathered for the first Friday prayers since Assad fled the country on Sunday, which has been named the country’s “freedom day.”
In a short speech, the rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani – using his birth name Ahmed al-Sharaa and wearing a double-breasted vest in place of his usual military fatigues – told Syrians that they should take to the streets to celebrate. It was the group that al-Jolani heads – Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – that led the 12-day rebel offensive that caused the downfall of the Assad regime.
The green of the Syrian opposition flag was everywhere, draped around shoulders and painted on children’s faces, as people sang the famous songs of revolutionary musician Abdel Baset al-Sarout, as well as chants of revenge. Shop owners were painting over the old, two-star regime flag that decorated store fronts in the ancient market of the old city.
Crowds cheered when members of the Syrian civil defence, known as the White Helmets, entered the Umayyad mosque territory for the first time since their founding in 2014. The group operated in opposition-held territory, rescuing victims of airstrikes while often coming under fire from regime and Russian warplanes.
For decades, the government checked to make sure imams around the country included prayers for Assad in their sermons. This week, the message from the sheikh, Ratab bil Nabulsi, was very different.
“We must be united in our fight for human rights and helping each other make Syria a light among nations again,” he said, voice cracking with emotion.
“Don’t forget the cost of freedom is to build a homeland with justice, where people can breathe freedom.”
In the audience, men, women and children piled in and spilled out into the courtyard. Several people cried as he spoke.
“It was 14 years of hell and this week is the best of that whole time,” said Hanan Hadi, 55, referring to the regime’s crackdown on peaceful Arab spring protests and the bloody civil war that followed.
The Assad regime quickly turned to violence to put down the peaceful protests that erupted in 2011, and severely punished dissent. Rights groups estimated more than 136,000 people were put in government prisons and more than 350,000 were killed in the more than a decade of civil war. Any form of public opposition in areas controlled by the government was met with harsh punishment.
Photograph: Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP/Getty Images
Finally free to speak out, the mood in the alleys and covered markets of the old city after Friday prayers was celebratory as people danced, sang and played drums. Green, red, white and black balloons decorated shopfronts.
Taseer Abdul Rahman, 29, said: “We are not used to freedom. I don’t know what we are going to do with it, it’s such a new feeling … But now this is our country, not Assad’s.”
A newly announced transitional government, led by Mohammed Bashir, who headed HTS’s civilian wing, had set about what it said was an institution-building phase in Syria. Civil servants were left in place and fighters withdrew from cities. By Friday, families milled through the streets of Syria and storefronts were back open; the sight of men with rifles was rare.
The international community has cautiously welcomed the prospect of a new government in Syria. Turkey appointed an envoy to Damascus on Friday after closing down its embassy 12 years earlier. European officials were also reportedly considering establishing contacts on a “working level” with Syria’s new leadership, according to AFP.
HTS officials were cautious in their statements even towards Israel, which since Sunday has launched hundreds of airstrikes on former regime weapons depots and military facilities that it did not want to fall into rebel hands.
While celebrations of freedom broke out across the country, many families continued the search for their loved ones, five days after regime prisons were broken open. Stephen Sakalian, the head of the ICRC delegation to Syria, said on Friday that the body had reported 35,000 missing people over the last 13 years – though other rights groups put that figure much higher.
Sakalian urged “all parties across Syria to prevent the destruction of crucial records”, as prisons were searched, to help ascertain the fate of missing loved ones, which he said could take “weeks, months and maybe years”.