Flowers and new faces: Damascus marks revolution anniversary for the first time

DAMASCUS — Flowers fell from a Syrian army helicopter on Saturday, strewn over Damascus alongside scraps of paper with messages of congratulation as residents of the capital marked the 14th anniversary of the revolution for the first time in Umayyad Square. 

“From the barrels of death to the flowers of life…peace soars in the skies of Damascus,” read the message on one slip of paper. “From you, with you, for you…we are the nation’s army,” read another. 

Bayan Said al-Helou, 21, was in the square on Saturday, commemorating the anniversary for the first time since Syrians rose up against the Assad regime in mid-March 2011. She lost her only brother a month after protests broke out in Reef Dimashq that year. He was 23 when he was detained from their home in the town of Qatana, west of the capital, and disappeared.

“I have many memories of the revolution—painful memories,” al-Helou said. She was still a child that day in 2011 when “regime forces stormed our house and detained my brother after beating him. They confiscated his motorcycle and my father’s motorcycle. Since then, we have known nothing about him.”

Ever since, al-Helou’s family has been searching for any thread of information that could lead them to her brother. “We paid huge amounts of money to see him, but the people we paid were scamming us,” she told Syria Direct.

Years passed, but the family still had hope her brother would be released one day. But the regime fell on December 8, 2024 and “my brother did not get out of prison,” she said. “The hope that he survived was dashed, and he joined thousands of other Syrians” killed under torture in Assad’s archipelago of prisons and detention sites. 

The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) has documented the death of 16,621 people under torture between March 2011 and February 2025, mostly at the hands of the deposed regime, according to figures Syria Direct compiled from several reports issued by the independent human rights monitor. 

Over the past 14 years, areas outside regime control marked the anniversary of the uprising annually. But in Qatana, al-Helou’s family lived in “fear and terror,” she said. “Fear of gunfire, terror when they raided our homes and intimidated the women.” The area where she lived included four army housing complexes, and “they controlled everything—even for bread, they had priority over us,” she said. 

“For us, life has now begun. True, we lost my brother, as we lost so many who gave themselves for the country, but the revolution finally won,” al-Helou said. The Syria she hopes for is one without “sectarian rhetoric, that does not refer to people as Sunni, Alawite or Christian.” She hopes Syrians can live “as children of one country.” 

She has been following recent events on the coast, where armed confrontations and sectarian killings claimed the lives of 961 people between March 6 and March 13: 432 killed by pro-Assad forces and 529 by forces affiliated with Syria’s new government. 

“I follow what happened on social media. Some accuse remnants of the regime, some accuse [Damascus’s] general security,” she said. “If the government caused this bloodshed, it must apologize. Our religion does not allow us to do injustice to anyone.” 

‘A great future’

Louay Murabit, 77, was also taking part in his first demonstration or celebration since the revolution began on Saturday. Over the past 14 years, “I shared people’s struggles emotionally, and helped those who were displaced from their cities to Damascus,” he told Syria Direct. 

“The Syrian revolution came out against injustice, dictatorship and the monopolization of Syria’s resources and potential for a single group, the ruling class,” Murabit said. Syrians’ trouble with the regime did not start in March 2011, but more than 50 years ago, he noted. “Syria [had] to be freed for people to govern themselves.” 

When the revolution began, Murabit had “hope it would win, but after that, we felt there were many forces that preferred the dictator [Bashar al-Assad] remain because he accepted the conditions of the West and Russia, rather than having new people ruling who are not subservient to the international community.”

He hoped a change could come peacefully, without the deep, violent struggle the country experienced in the following years. After more than 50 years of dictatorship, “there was no room for peaceful change, the only solution was force,” he said. This is what happened with “many revolutions in the world, since the French revolution that changed the lives of the French,” he said. 

“Syria has a great future, so long as the forces that want to abort our revolution leave us alone” he said, looking out at the joyful celebrations. “People [must] be left to determine their own fate.” 

‘Syria needs everyone’s support’

Nahla Nabhani, 21, was also a child when the spark of the revolution was lit in March 2011. She grew up as the former regime used deadly force against its opponents and tightened its hold on the capital, some areas coming to resemble large prisons. Then “the revolution won, and gave back the hope for a better future,” she told Syria Direct. 

Standing in Umayyad Square on Saturday, Nabhani, a Syrian-Palestinian from Jdeidet Artouz in Reef Dimashq, expressed thanks for the people “who made great sacrifices for our liberation,” she said. “They gave a lot to bring us to this day.”

The difference between Assad’s rule and the present feels stark to Nabhani. “We couldn’t express our opinion out of fear. Today, we express our views clearly,” she said. “Syria needs us to work together to build it…the country needs to start from scratch.” 

Bilal Abdulhayy, 19, wore a Palestinian keffiyeh around his shoulders on Saturday, expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people and Palestinian friends he met as a refugee in Jordan, where his family fled in 2012. 

Bilal Abdulhayy, 19, came to Damascus’s Umayyad Square to commemorate the 14th anniversary of the revolution, 15/3/2025 (Natacha Danon/Syria Direct)

Abdulhayy is from Harasta, a largely destroyed city in the East Ghouta suburbs of  Damascus. After fleeing to Jordan, his family went to Saudi Arabia, where they were until they decided to return, one day after Assad fell, he told Syria Direct. 

He had no words to describe the experience of “commemorating the revolution for the first time,” he said. “Everyone is celebrating, even non-Syrians, as in the case of people in Saudi Arabia.”

Abdulhayy plans to join the new Syrian government’s security service, under the Ministry of Interior. Joining the security forces is something he never considered, but he changed his mind when “hope returned and our country came back to us,” he said. 

“Syria needs everyone’s support, whether international support or from citizens,” Abdulhayy said. “We have to stand with it, for the sake of its economy and infrastructure.” He fears hard years to come “if the international community doesn’t stand with us.” 

‘My rights as a Syrian citizen’

Among the celebrating crowds, Maha Hussein, 47, took advantage of the occasion to raise her voice in another way, speaking out against “injustice” at the hands of the new government, she told Syria Direct.

Until recently, al-Hussein worked at a kiosk—a small roadside shop—in Damascus, but she was forced to vacate it by the new government’s General Security Service, she said. “They do not listen to our demands, while we are dying of hunger,” she said. “How will I feed my kids?”

Five years ago, the regime pressured al-Hussein to vacate her kiosk too. “There was no [security] branch that hadn’t done a security study on me, and I was summoned by military security,” she said. “We couldn’t believe that we got freedom and I lost my livelihood.” Kiosks are owned and licensed by the government and were put up for public auctions in past years, often benefiting people affiliated with the regime. 

“I want to speak with conscience,” al-Hussein said. “The current general security hasn’t been lacking in other matters, but when I approach them about the kiosks, they say ‘it has nothing to do with us,’” she said. “It’s a shame what’s happening to us as Syrians. The big guys [the rich] leave the country, and we, the little guys, are the ones struggling among ourselves.”

Hussein is a member of Syria’s Alawite minority sect, but she refused to express her demands in that capacity. “I am demanding my rights as a Syrian citizen, addressing my message to President Ahmad al-Sharaa,” she said. “I want my rights as a Syrian, not on a sectarian basis.” 

The revolution’s anniversary this year comes in the wake of upheaval, bloodshed and uncertainty—from the latest events on the coast to uncertainty about Druze-majority Suwayda’s relationship with the central state. 

The challenges ahead remain daunting, but for al-Helou one thing at least was clear on Saturday: “Syria is so beautiful, and we love it so much.”

Natacha Danon contributed reporting.

This report was originally published in Arabic and translated into English by Mateo Nelson.