“Living in Syria was like living with a shotgun to your head” – Libération

Thousands of Damascenes gathered this Friday, December 13 in the Umayyad Square to celebrate the fall of Bashar al-Assad, almost a week ago. Very few fighters were visible.

The flag of Syrian independence with three red stars, which has become that of the revolution, has never been waved in a rally in Damascus since 2011. Unthinkable, even suicidal, under the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The rare demonstrations during the first months of the uprising had only a few dozen participants and their duration was measured in minutes, the time for the mukhabarat, the intelligence agents, to surge. Those who failed to escape risked death.

This Friday, December 13, the colors of the revolution were everywhere on the Umayyad Square in the Syrian capital. On flags, posters, pennants, children's cheeks. Hanging instead are torn portraits of Bashar al-Assad, brandished by teenagers, adults, taped to strollers. No one counted the number of demonstrators, but there were thousands, perhaps a few tens of thousands if you count the gatherings in the adjacent streets.

Everyone said it: it was their first demonstration. Bachir, an 18-year-old high school student, was even intimidated by it. After twenty minutes