Mustafa Hatib Abdulgafur suggests that the civil war stemmed from the revolt of young generation for freedom against the oppression of the Ba'ath Regime.
Mustafa Hatib Abdulgafur Abu Shahabeddin: I am 65 years old. I have 5 children and I am a retired Imam.
ORSAM: Could you tell us about your life before the civil war in Syria, what you went through during the civil war and the reasons why you came to Turkey?
Mustafa Hatib Abdulgafur Abu Shahabeddin: Nobody prevents us from performing our religion and our religious duties in Syria. However, some restrictions were imposed in lessons and khutbahs. We cannot mention the cruelty of tyrant. We cannot interpret some verses from the Qoran. We cannot talk about some issues at all.
Our children study, but they cannot take office in crucial positions within state institutions. We are always appointed to second-class positions. Even current Ministers cannot make political statements and comments, even if they are Sunni. Only Head of the State, Ba'ath Party members and Foreign Minister have the control. We have a symbolic assembly and a symbolic Council of Ministers. The same problem is observed also in Parliamentary elections, municipal elections, and mukhtar elections. Those who are not from Ba'ath cannot even become candidate.
From each district, 15-20 people go to the polls in Presidential elections. Others do not even go to the polls but when the election results are announced, voter turnout is 90%. In our system, neighborhood mukhtar or village headman are not elected but they are appointed, and they do not receive salary, nor do they have a social security. The civil war, conflict, and opposition stemmed as a result of this. No matter what your position, rank or character is, you are nothing if you are not from the Ba'ath party and if you are Sunni. The person with lowest rank gives order to the one with highest rank, he disobeys.
The old were ignorant, and they put up with it. The new generation, on the other hand, is in the quest of a change in the changing world. What we call freedom is for that. We are free in trade, in education, in travel; but we do not have a dignity. In some regions, we are not even treated like a human being. As they do not take us seriously, we cannot give orders on important issues, but instead we receive orders. Therefore, unrest broke out among the young. Therefore, we rebelled against the regime, and we started our fight. We cannot say the wrong of a Ba'ath Party government official to his face. Otherwise we are put in prison and nobody knows how long and where we are kept under custody. No one can defend the political prisoners and opponents, and nobody including their family can visit the aforesaid prisoners. It is not possible to know where they are either. That's why the civil war broke out. Briefly those are the reasons of migration from Syria.
* This interview was made by Feyyat Özyazar in Reyhanlı district of Hatay on 6 December 2012.
