political figure

Mouawiya Syasneh

معاوية سياسنة

Journeys

The Graffiti That Started a Revolution

Mouawiya Syasneh was 15 years old and wrote on a school wall. The words were ordinary — borrowed from the Arab Spring sweeping North Africa. What happened next was not: his arrest, the torture of children, the refusal to release them, the protests that followed, and the crackdown that turned protests into an uprising.

Biography

Mouawiya Syasneh is a Syrian protester and soldier. In March 2011, then 14 or 15-year-old Syasneh and his friends spray-painted anti-government graffiti on the walls of their school in Daraa, leading to their arrest and torture. Many credited the graffiti incident as a trigger for the onset of widespread protests against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, which ultimately escalated into the Syrian civil war.

Documentation Status

VerificationConfirmed

Journeys1

Key Facts

Born:1997

Place:Daraa, Syria

Nationality:Syrian