I used to wear fancy dresses and high heels. But, not anymore.
I'm 24. 24 years. So you're going to spend a good part of your
20s in war. Yeah, yeah. I have to do this for my country.
I have to give what I can give. It's pretty important to let the world see what's going
on. You know, I think nobody knew Syria on the map before this revolution. And now everybody
knows what's going on in Syria and that's because of the press covering what's going
on. That's really important. Somebody has to see all this. Somebody has
to know what this monster is doing to us, and to his own people. And, I'm making sure
that somebody is going to know. All the people in the world are going to see this, hopefully.
See us suffering. See the civilians suffering. I mean, it's not a way to do this. It's wrong.
You just saw a man die 5 minutes ago. Do you worry that could happen to you?
You're not thinking in this mentality anymore. This is something I have to do. I mean so
many people, so many girls, died in the kitchen, like doing the dishwash or something, and
they have like a mortar shell or shrapnel coming through the window, and they drop dead.
So what's the point? Why should I die cheap? So I have to go, I have to do this. I'm not afraid of death.
Bashar. I am Omar Hattab. I am 32 years old.
My nickname is Mowya. I was a civilian before the revolution started, but now I am fighting
in the Free Syrian Army against the Bashar al-Assad regime.
I joke that I always keep one bullet left in my gun for myself.
Yes, you must keep one bullet here in Syria. You keep it for yourself. It's better than
the regime catch you. I guarantee that way. You must keep one bullet. So you can die fastly.
They tortured me very hard. There are too many kinds of torture. For example, one time
they carried me, two men, one from my legs and the other from my neck, and they threw
me up and down from the ceiling to the ground. The most bad thing is when you hear the sounds
of the men being tortured, and you don't know if you are the next or not.
What did they accuse you of? Yes, because I say freedom. It is a very big
crime here. You know, they told us in the prison. Can
you imagine another one can lead this country? Only Bashar can lead this country. And they
believe it, they don't say it like that. They believe it, that only Bashar Assad can lead
this country. No one can lead it. Because he's genius. You see, how he turned the country?
Before that we oh, we feel bad, there is a lot of people in the streets, that's no good.
Look now, it's empty! You can walk like you want. This is the genius, Bashar Assad.
You're not safe anywhere. I've got my friend, she has been arrested, for so long. Last week
we received that she is dead. Because she was tortured, raped. It makes me sick. I'd
rather die. Really, I'd rather die than let them have me for five minutes.
Before this, all this, starts, before the revolution, I used to teach English, in school.
And, really sometimes I think like it's just, a nightmare, all this that I'm going through
right now. If I go to sleep and wake up, everything will be fine, and I'll go back to school and
teach. What about this building? Do you know what
happened here? No one knows. And no one wants to know. You
don't know how many people lived there, and there. And they have dreams, they have their
lives. They laughing sometimes, they crying sometimes. All that's end now. All that end.
This is the
center of the city, you know what's the meaning, center of the city? Look. Can you imagine
Wall Street like that? If the government comes by voting, no problem.
What the people want, I will. I like the government, I don't like it... but it must be democracy.
Not from father to son. And the animals too, hate Bashar. Look, she
feels safety here, with us. We're not terrorists, like they say.
In this place, my friend died. It was the first time that he puts on a mask, on his
face. Because he decided to be in the FSA. And nobody could recognize him. We've got
one guy wounded, and he wanted to help that guy, but nobody could cross to that bleeding
guy in the middle of the street because of the bullets all over the place, and the security
forces. But he has the guts, and he went for it, and other guys got encouraged and ran
to help him out. And he dragged the body, and his friends helped him. Once he got to
that point, one bullet went through his chest, and he, he died. The funny thing is that our
friend was standing in that corner, and, videotaping the whole thing. And he didn't know that it
was our friend, because he had his mask on. So the guys grabbed his body and tried to
take him to the nearest field hospital. And they took off the mask. And it was him. And
he just shouted, "Ehsan." He was like my brother. He's just 19. Too bad that they had to hold
the responsibility as men, because they're only teenagers. I'm not going to forget this
boy. And I'm going to continue to fight, as he did. I'm not going to give up, even if
I have to die, I'm going to do this. Nobody had an idea about politics here, because
we don't talk about that. We're not allowed to talk about politics really, even with our
families. I cannot open a conversation about politics with my mother or father, because
we're just so much scared that somebody might overhear us, and the next day somebody might
knock on our door and arrest the whole family, just for talking about politics. Syria is,
is destroyed now. It's true. It's true. But now, we've got one thing that's worthy. That
we can talk, and express our opinions about anything. I mean, that's really worth all
this sacrifice. Because we had enough. From not being able to say how we feel, or what
are our opinions. And not being able to participate in this country. And now, we can. We're going
to build this whole country again, from scratch, from zero. And, it doesn't matter how long
does this last. Or how much damage it's going to be. Because, really, all the males and
females of this country are willing to build it again, and even better than it was before.
Proud to be Syrian. Because Syria is going to be better, without that criminal. Yeah.
It's beautiful without this guy, running this country. So, we're working on that. Yeah,
we do. The animal, maybe this cat, is more important
for the Americans than the Syrian people. Because, I'm sure, that the animals have rights
in America, more than the people here. They don't care about us. So what, maybe if you
film three or four cats, and put it on YouTube, maybe one million will watch the video, will
see the video, in one hour. They don't care about the people.
Maybe, after the Americans see that, they will find there are cats here in Syria. I
hope they will help the cats. Maybe see, oh there are cats in Syria. So, let's go help
Syria. Don't care about the woman, just care about the cat. At least the cat is an animal,
it needs some support. People have said this before?
Yes, we feel that. I know it's not real, but, it's this close to being real.