Until this weekend, the Assad dynasty had ruled Syria for over fifty years – with a regime so brutal, so oppressive, it was known as “The Kingdom of Silence”.
As foreign correspondent William Christou explains, it had seemed as recently as two weeks ago that it would simply carry on. Bashar al-Assad, president since 2000, had crushed the uprisings that started thirteen years ago against his rule, and he had slowly taken back control of most of Syrian territory over the course of a decade-long civil war – the bloodiest conflict of the twenty-first century.
But despite the appearance of stability, inside Syria there was a deep malaise: institutions hollowed out, a people impoverished, a president held in power only with the aid of his foreign backers. So when an Islamist rebel offensive began from the north, two weeks ago, it confronted barely any resistance at all, taking first Aleppo, then Hama, Homs – and then finally, this Sunday, capturing the Syrian capital Damascus itself, forcing its dictator to flee.
Christou, there in Damascus on the first day of post-Assad Syria, reports on the celebrations all over the country, as well as the scenes from inside the regime’s notorious prisons, as they free some of the tens of thousands of the ‘disappeared’ under Assad’s rule.
Michael Safi also hears from Damascus resident Anas Aldruby on what it has been like to live under Assad in the last few years, as well as the last few days, as the rebels moved ever closer towards his home city.