Date and Time: Wednesday, January 22, 2025, 7:30 to 9 PM (Beirut Time)

Location: Via Zoom

Language: Arabic with English translation

Moderation: Farouk Al-Moghraby

As we enter the year 2025, it is our profound hope that the coming year will bring our societies closer to achieving freedom, justice, and dignity.

The MENA Prison Forum and the Lokman Slim Foundation are delighted to commence the new year with a webinar titled “From Political Assassination to Assassination of Politics in Syria.” Our guest for this event will be the Syrian poet and writer Faraj Bayrakdar. In this talk, Bayrakdar will draw on his personal experiences to address the targeted killings of Syrian political activists, particularly his comrades in leftist parties. He also will discuss the use of intimidation and terror against activists and politicians, including imprisonment, torture, and forced disappearance, which have eroded political life in the country for decades.

Faraj Bayrakdar is a Syrian poet and writer. He was a political prisoner in his home country for almost 14 years. After an international campaign for his release and a presidential amnesty in 2000, he went into exile in Sweden in 2005. He is best known for his poetry collection “A Dove in Free Flight” that was published without the author's knowledge while still in a Syrian prison. These poems were first published in Arabic and later translated into French and English. His work is part of contemporary Syrian prison literature.