Interviews

LATEST Interviews

Syrian comedian on finding a distinctively Aleppo sense of humor despite ‘destruction, bloodshed’ in home city

March 19

In the early days, there was precious little equipment. Handheld camcorders, just a few props. Reflective headlights removed from cars served as light reflectors. And filming woul...

Rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni warns against ‘making deals with war criminals’ as international community convenes at Brussels conference

March 14

BRUSSELS: “How can we build solutions with the perpetrators of crimes against humanity and war crimes?”

‘I came here so I could talk,’ says Syrian NGO founder at Brussels III, despite limbo in Swiss asylum center

March 14

BRUSSELS: A longtime humanitarian worker and the founder of his own Lebanon-based NGO, Ashraf Alhafny has spent the past seven months in a Swiss reception center for asylum seeker...

‘We’ve already died a thousand times,’ says one of last Khan Sheikhoun residents to flee wave of bombing

March 12

Khan Sheikhoun is a town of concrete. Poured-cement homes stacked beside one another, cinder-block sheds, shops and cafes.To be indoors during a pro-government airstrike or bombin...

Civilians ‘caught in the middle’ as HTS roots out suspected IS sleeper cells in Idlib

March 07

Last week, a suspected Islamic State (IS) suicide bomber detonated themself inside a crowded restaurant in downtown Idlib city, killing several members of hardline faction Hay’at ...

‘If we don’t show mercy to animals, we can’t be merciful with one another’: Aleppo’s cat rescuer on new memoir

March 07

All his life, Alaa Aljaleel dreamed of becoming a rescue worker. His father had served on Aleppo city’s fire brigade for 40 years, and he was determined to continue the tradition.

‘War continued through other means’: How reconstruction risks perpetuating violence in a post-war Syria

February 12

"Down with gangster rule." Graffiti in downtown Beirut, February 2. Photo by Tom Rollins for Syria Direct. When the reconstruction of downtown Beirut first began in the 1990s, on...

‘The one who gave life to the demonstrations’: Raed Fares, remembered

November 26

An undated photo of Raed Fares. Photo courtesy of Kafr Nabl Media Center. Syrian civil society leader and activist Raed Fares was no stranger to threats against his life. Since ...

‘Embrace of the nation’: How the Syrian government seeks to control, obstruct refugee returns

October 25

A Syrian man carries a suitcase as refugees prepare to leave Beirut in September. Photo by Anwar Amro/AFP. In his speech at the UN General Assembly last month, Syrian Foreign Min...

‘Religious freedoms, political restrictions’: Amid dispute over local education policy, Assyrian writer reflects on minority rights in Syria’s northeast

October 10

Syria’s majority-Kurdish Hasakah province is, for the most part, quiet—tucked into a northeastern corner of the country far from the front lines. But there are signs ...

Ambassador Frederic Hof: ‘I would be very surprised if I were to see in a Biden administration the resurrection of the Obama approach to Syria’

Co-chair of the PYD: SDF could join government forces in Idlib after an agreement on role in Syrian Armed Forces

Sieda: ‘The Kurdish issue must be resolved within a national framework that includes all Syrians’

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