Activists and intellectuals from Sweida issued a statement in support of the new peaceful popular rally taking place in the southern Syrian city for three weeks to demand better living conditions and democracy.

The statement pointed out that the peaceful movement has restored the Syrian revolution to its first course of demanding a democratic state, the state of citizenship and law, and demanding the implementation of UN resolutions, especially Resolution 2254, and turning the page on the regime of corruption and tyranny.

“The UNSC Resolution 2254 was unanimously adopted on 18 December 2015. It was described as the roadmap for Syria's political transition.”

More than 300 protesters took to the streets of Sweida early February to demand better living conditions and democracy in a rare protest inside regime-held areas, a war monitor said.

The protest came after authorities cut off 600,000 families from its subsidies program, staging their biggest rally yet.

The rally went ahead despite a heavy deployment of security forces, who sealed off main roads.

Activists loyal to the Syrian regime launched a media campaign accusing the peaceful Sweida movement of being associated with Israel. This campaign coincided with security forces in Sweden and a large movement of Iranian militias towards the borders of the southern province.

The statement called for an international trial of the Assad regime with all its symbols and tools as a genocide regime that committed crimes against humanity, documented by many international organizations when using chemical weapons against civilian neighborhoods, and the systematic killing under torture of tens of thousands of detainees.

The statement, a copy of which Zaman al-Wasl received, added that the Assad regime committed crimes of high treason against the homeland and its citizens because of its betrayal of the national trust and betrayal of the oath and the country’s constitution by directing the Syrian army’s weapons to the civilians of Syria.

The statement concluded by stressing that the pain of the sons of the great Syria, from its north to its south and from its west to its east, is one and their destiny is one, calling on the Arab brothers and the countries of the free world with its leaders and peoples to help the free Syrians implement the relevant international resolutions, foremost of which is Resolution 2254, and market war criminals from the regime. Assad and his clique to international courts and the application of justice.

Earlier this month, the government excluded a large number of people from its subsidies program, in a country where 90 percent of the population is poor.

Those who were cut off lost access to lower-priced food and oil, a move that triggered rare protests and criticism from within government-held areas of Syria.

Smaller protests over similar issues were held in Sweida in 2020.

But the Druze, who made up less than three percent of Syria’s pre-war population, largely kept out of the country’s conflict.

Sweida has been mostly spared by the fighting in the decade-old war, and only faced sporadic jihadist attacks which were repelled.

Syria has grappled with an economic crisis compounded by Western sanctions, the Covid-19 pandemic and a rapid devaluation of the local currency.

Syria’s conflict began in March 2011 and has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million.  (With AFP)