Syrian Revolution                                                                الثورة السورية

Students Refuse To Study in Baath Controlled Schools, and New Details on Harmoush

Today’s Top Developments

• The regime instructed teachers to ask their students about their parents’ opinions on the current events in Syria and record them.

• New information show that Hussein Harmoush was captured by Alawite Turkish intelligence officers loyal to Assad not Turkey.

• The regime sold the Syrian strategic reserves of wheat to pay the salaries of mercenaries.

Today’s Top Videos

• Shelling of civilian homes with heavy artillery, Homs

• Torture marks on the body of killed activist Ghiath Matar, Damascus

• Syrian students in Homs protest as school year start.

Today’s Summary of Events

Syrian students demonstrated on the Sunday of “toppling the Baath education system” which started on the first day of school in Syria. More than half of the classrooms were empty. The regime has instructed teachers to ask their students about their parents’ opinions on the current events in Syria, and whether they liked Bashar Assad or cursed him. The “interviews” were recorded and later sent to the Baath Party office in the city. As for high schools, sons of regime loyalists would go to their classes with weapons to threaten students who opposed the regime. At universities, dormitories were closed as the administrations feared demonstrations might break out from campuses.

It is noted that eight students under the age of twelve were arrested in Palmyra. The residents announced a general strike in reaction, while security forces laid siege to the city. In Homs, many young students from the affluent Ghouta neighborhood were arrested and then used to blackmail their parents for money.

Demonstrations broke out all over Syria, especially at schools, including primary and high schools, boys and girls schools alike. Many students chanted “no education until the lowlife [Assad] is toppled”. Other students refused to go to school, extending their summer vacation to a “toppling the regime” vacation in fear of what may befall them of interrogations and kidnappings in the schools if they went. In the meantime, security operations continued throughout the country; in Deir Azzour, Damascus and its suburbs, Aleppo and its suburbs, Homs, Idlib, Hama, Deraa and Lattakia.

As for Hussain Harmoush of the Free Syrian Army, new information has been revealed explains that Alawite Turkish intelligence units kidnapped him and two other ranking officers after drugging their food during their meeting in Hatay. Those intelligence officers, who were unofficially on the case, cooperated with three Syrian intelligence officers, one of whom had Iranian citizenship. The three Syrian intelligence officers have been captured by the Turkish government and are currently under interrogation.

Economically, the regime sold the Syrian strategic reserves of wheat, which are estimated to be around 300 thousand tons. The regime needed their revenue to pay the salaries and wages of the mercenaries it hires. The Syrian wheat was replaced with Ukrainian grade 4 wheat that is usually used to manufacture animal feed. The regime has been suffering economically and has recently started sending out social affairs committees to industrial areas to collect money to support “reforms”. Most merchants and industrialists refused that gesture, as people realize that as soon as the regime runs out of money it will run out of supporters.