Syria Protests Spurred by Economic Misery Stir Memories of the 2011 Anti-Government Uprising 

In this photo released on Sunday, Aug. 27, 2023, by Suwayda24, people stage a protest as they wave the Druze flags in the southern city of Sweida, Syria. (Suwayda24 via AP)
In this photo released on Sunday, Aug. 27, 2023, by Suwayda24, people stage a protest as they wave the Druze flags in the southern city of Sweida, Syria. (Suwayda24 via AP)
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Syria Protests Spurred by Economic Misery Stir Memories of the 2011 Anti-Government Uprising 

In this photo released on Sunday, Aug. 27, 2023, by Suwayda24, people stage a protest as they wave the Druze flags in the southern city of Sweida, Syria. (Suwayda24 via AP)
In this photo released on Sunday, Aug. 27, 2023, by Suwayda24, people stage a protest as they wave the Druze flags in the southern city of Sweida, Syria. (Suwayda24 via AP)

Anti-government protests in southern Syria have stretched into a second week, with demonstrators waving the colorful flag of the minority Druze community, burning banners of President Bashar Assad's government and at one point raiding several offices of his ruling party.

The protests were initially driven by surging inflation and the war-torn country's spiraling economy but quickly shifted focus, with marchers calling for the fall of the Assad government.

The demonstrations have been centered in the government-controlled province of Sweida, the heartland of Syria’s Druze, who had largely stayed on the sidelines during the long-running conflict between Assad and those trying to topple him.

In a scene that once would have been unthinkable in the Druze stronghold, protesters kicked members of Assad’s Baath party out of some of their offices, welded the doors shut and spray-painted anti-government slogans on the walls.

The protests have rattled the Assad government, but don't seem to pose an existential threat. They come at a time when government forces have consolidated control over most of the country. Meanwhile, Damascus has returned to the Arab fold and restored ties with most governments in the region.

Still, anger is building, even among Syrians who did not join the initial anti-Assad protests in 2011. Those demonstrations were met with a harsh crackdown and plunged the country into years of war.

For some, the final straw came two weeks ago when the Syrian president further scaled back the country’s expensive fuel and gasoline subsidy program. Assad also doubled meager public sector wages and pensions, but those actions did little to cushion the blow, instead accelerating inflation and further weakening the already sinking Syrian pound. The results further piled on the economic pressure on millions living in poverty.

Soon after, protests kicked off in Sweida and the neighboring province of Daraa.

Over the past decade, Sweida had largely isolated itself from Syria’s uprising-turned-conflict. The province witnessed sporadic protests decrying corruption and the country’s economic backslide. This time, crowds quickly swelled into the hundreds, calling out political repression by Assad's government and stirring echoes of the protests that rocked the country in 2011.

"People have reached a point where they can no longer withstand the situation," Rayan Maarouf, editor-in-chief of the local activist media collective Suwayda24, told The Associated Press. "Everything is crumbling."

While Assad’s political fortunes have been on the rise in recent months, life for much of the country’s population has become increasingly miserable. At least 300,000 civilians have been killed in the conflict, half of Syria’s prewar population of 23 million has been displaced and large parts of the infrastructure have been crippled. Ninety percent of Syrians live in poverty. Rampant corruption and Western-led sanctions have also worsened poverty and inflation.

In Daraa — often referred to as the birthplace of the 2011 uprising but now under government control — at least 57 people were arrested in the current protests, according to the Britain-based Syrian Network for Human Rights. Unlike in 2011, government forces did not use lethal force.

In Sweida, the response has been more restrained, with Assad apparently wary of exerting too much force against the Druze. During the years of war, his government presented itself as a defender of religious minorities against extremism.

Over the years, the province's young men also have armed themselves to defend their villages from ISIS militants and Damascus-associated militias that produce and trade in illegal amphetamine pills, known as Captagon.

Joseph Daher, a Swiss-Syrian researcher and professor at the European University Institute in Florence, believes that this provides a layer of protection for protesters.

"Unlike other government-held areas, Sweida has some form of limited autonomy," Daher said.

Meanwhile, in Damascus, Latakia, Tartous and other urban government strongholds, some are voicing their discontent more quietly. They write messages of support for the protests on paper, take pictures of those notes on the streets of their towns, and share them on social media.

Others suffer in silence and focus on daily survival. In Damascus, some have taken to carrying backpacks instead of wallets to carry the wads of cash they need to make everyday purchases amid the rampant inflation, while families struggle to buy basic necessities.

"If I buy (my son) two containers of milk, I’d have spent my entire month’s salary," Damascus resident Ghaswan al-Wadi told the AP while preparing her family dinner at home after a long day at work.

The ongoing protests highlight Assad's vulnerability as a result of the failing economy, even in areas that tried to withstand the situation and not hold large-scale protests against his rule.

Could the protests eventually threaten his rule?

Daher said this could only happen if the protesters banded together.

"You have forms of solidarity from other cities (with Sweida)," Daher said. "But you can’t say it would have a real effect on the regime, unless there would be collaboration between (protesters in) different cities."



Fear Stalks Tehran as Israel Bombards, Shelters Fill Up and Communicating Grows Harder

Shops remain shuttered Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)
Shops remain shuttered Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)
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Fear Stalks Tehran as Israel Bombards, Shelters Fill Up and Communicating Grows Harder

Shops remain shuttered Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)
Shops remain shuttered Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)

The streets of Tehran are empty, businesses closed, communications patchy at best. With no bona fide bomb shelters open to the public, panicked masses spend restless nights on the floors of metro stations as strikes boom overhead.

This is Iran’s capital city, just under a week into a fierce Israeli blitz to destroy the country's nuclear program and its military capabilities. After knocking out much of Iran's air defense system, Israel says its warplanes have free rein over the city's skies. US President Donald Trump on Monday told Tehran's roughly 10 million residents to evacuate “immediately.”

Thousands have fled, spending hours in gridlock as they head toward the suburbs, the Caspian Sea, or even Armenia or Türkiye. But others — those elderly and infirm — are stuck in high-rise apartment buildings. Their relatives fret: what to do?

Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least 585 people and wounded over 1,300, a human rights group says. State media, also a target of bombardment, have stopped reporting on the attacks, leaving Iranians in the dark. There are few visible signs of state authority: Police appear largely undercover, air raid sirens are unreliable, and there’s scant information on what to do in case of attack.

Shirin, 49, who lives in the southern part of Tehran, said every call or text to friends and family in recent days has felt like it could be the last.

“We don’t know if tomorrow we will be alive,” she said.

Many Iranians feel conflicted. Some support Israel's targeting of Iranian political and military officials they see as repressive. Others staunchly defend the country and retaliatory strikes on Israel. Then, there are those who oppose Iran’s rulers, but still don't want to see their country bombed.

To stay, or to go? The Associated Press interviewed five people in Iran and one Iranian American in the US over the phone. All spoke either on the condition of anonymity or only allowed their first names to be used, for fear of retribution from the state against them or their families.

Most of the calls ended abruptly and within minutes, cutting off conversations as people grew nervous or because the connection dropped. Iran’s government has acknowledged disrupting internet access. It says it's to protect the country, though that has blocked average Iranians from getting information from the outside world.

Iranians in the diaspora wait anxiously for news from relatives. One, an Iranian American human rights researcher in the US, said he last heard from relatives when some were trying to flee Tehran earlier in the week. He believes that lack of gas and traffic prevented them from leaving.

The most heartbreaking interaction, he said, was when his older cousins with whom he grew up in Iran told him “We don’t know where to go. If we die, we die.”

“Their sense was just despair,” he said.

Some families have made the decision to split up.

A 23-year-old Afghan refugee who has lived in Iran for four years said he stayed behind in Tehran but sent his wife and newborn son out of the city after a strike Monday hit a nearby pharmacy.

“It was a very bad shock for them,” he said.

Some, like Shirin, said fleeing was not an option. The apartment buildings in Tehran are towering and dense. Her father has Alzheimer’s and needs an ambulance to move. Her mother's severe arthritis would make even a short trip extremely painful.

Still, hoping escape might be possible, she spent the last several days trying to gather their medications. Her brother waited at a gas station until 3 a.m., only to be turned away when the fuel ran out. As of Monday, gas was being rationed to under 20 liters (5 gallons) per driver at stations across Iran after an Israeli strike set fire to the world's largest gas field.

Some people, like Arshia, said they are just tired.

“I don’t want to go in traffic for 40 hours, 30 hours, 20 hours, just to get to somewhere that might get bombed eventually,” he said.

The 22-year-old has been staying in the house with his parents since the initial Israeli strike. He said his once-lively neighborhood of Saadat Abad in northwestern Tehran is now a ghost town. Schools are closed. Very few people even step outside to walk their dogs. Most local stores have run out of drinking water and cooking oil. Others closed.

Still, Arshia said the prospect of finding a new place is too daunting.

“We don’t have the resources to leave at the moment,” he said.

Residents are on their own

No air raid sirens went off as Israeli strikes began pounding Tehran before dawn Friday. For many, it was an early sign civilians would have to go it alone.

During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Tehran was a low-slung city, many homes had basements to shelter in, and there were air raid drills and sirens. Now the capital is packed with close-built high-rise apartments without shelters.

“It's a kind of failing of the past that they didn’t build shelters,” said a 29-year-old Tehran resident who left the city Monday. “Even though we’ve been under the shadow of a war, as long as I can remember.”

Her friend's boyfriend was killed while going to the store.

“You don’t really expect your boyfriend or your anyone, really to leave the house and never return when they just went out for a routine normal shopping trip,” she said.

Those who choose to relocate do so without help from the government. The state has said it is opening mosques, schools and metro stations for use as shelters. Some are closed, others overcrowded.

Hundreds crammed into one Tehran metro station Friday night. Small family groups lay on the floor. One student, a refugee from another country, said she spent 12 hours in the station with her relatives.

“Everyone there was panicking because of the situation,” she said. “Everyone doesn’t know what will happen next, if there is war in the future and what they should do. People think nowhere is safe for them.”

Soon after leaving the station, she saw that Israel had warned a swath of Tehran to evacuate.

“For immigrant communities, this is so hard to live in this kind of situation,” she said, explaining she feels like she has nowhere to escape to, especially not her home country, which she asked not be identified.

Fear of Iran mingles with fear of Israel

For Shirin, the hostilities are bittersweet. Despite being against the theocracy and its treatment of women, the idea that Israel may determine the future does not sit well with her.

“As much as we want the end of this regime, we didn’t want it to come at the hands of a foreign government,” she said. “We would have preferred that if there were to be a change, it would be the result of a people’s movement in Iran.”

Meanwhile, the 29-year-old who left Tehran had an even more basic message for those outside Iran:

“I just want people to remember that whatever is happening here, it’s not routine business for us. People’s lives here — people’s livelihoods — feel as important to them as they feel to anyone in any other place. How would you feel if your city or your country was under bombardment by another country, and people were dying left and right?”

“We are kind of like, this can’t be happening. This can’t be my life.”