Ghiyath Matar: Syria's Little Gandhi

Ghiyath Matar was born in 1988 in Daraya, a suburb southwest of Damascus. He was a tailor by trade, soft-spoken and deeply principled. When the Syrian revolution began in March 2011, he emerged as a leading organizer of protests in Daraya.

What made Ghiyath extraordinary was his commitment to radical nonviolence in the face of live fire. In the early months of the uprising, he organized protesters to hand roses, flowers, and bottles of water to soldiers and security personnel at checkpoints — an act of deliberate humanity toward the very men arresting and shooting demonstrators.

The strategy was inspired partly by the tactics of Mahatma Gandhi and the civil rights movement. Ghiyath believed that if protesters maintained absolute nonviolence, they would reveal the naked brutality of the regime. International media began calling him "Syria's Little Gandhi."

He was arrested on September 6, 2011 during a security sweep of Daraya. Four days later, on September 10, 2011, his family was called to collect his body. He had died under torture. He was 23 years old.

His wife, Kenda, was pregnant. She gave birth to their son, named Ghiyath after his father, after his death. The child would grow up without ever knowing him.

The U.S. Ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford — who had visited Hama in July 2011 in solidarity with protesters — publicly mourned Ghiyath's death, calling it an example of Assad's brutality against peaceful protesters. The EU condemned his killing. Amnesty International issued an urgent report documenting the evidence of torture on his body.

Ghiyath Matar became one of the most cited martyrs of the Syrian revolution's first year — proof that the regime would not spare even the most peaceful voices.