To emphasize the right of students to freedom, and out of the belief in their active role in the Syrian uprising since its beginning, the Coordination Committee of Sweida Students launched a campaign called “I am a student, and I have the right to call for...”

The campaign, according to the organizers, aimed to “spread the ideas of the revolution and freedom amongst students and to stress the importance of their role in building the future of the new Syria.” In order to emphasize the cause-effect relationship between knowledge and freedom, they established a page called “Students of Knowledge and Freedom”.

The campaign started on Sunday, April 28, 2013 and continued until May 2, 2013. It called on Syrian students, groups and coordination committees to hold peaceful protests, and to write, create leaflets and hold awareness campaigns about the meaning of freedom and the role of students in shaping their freedom and their demands.

Those in charge of the campaign created the email address [email protected]) for those who would like to get in contact with them and participate in the campaign.

A number of students at Syrian schools and universities responded to the invitation. They turned their boards into banners for freedom on which they wrote their slogans and demands. The girls of Mamduh Nassar School wrote: "We want a civil state, not an Islamist one. Only slaves call for freedom, but free people create it.”

At the Sweida University of Arts, a banner was raised, reading, “Until when will our universities remain a hotbed for thugs?”

The Sweida branch of the Union of Free Syrian Students had a large contribution to the campaign. They raised several banners at schools and universities. Some of the messages they wrote were, “We have all been entrusted with the revolution, so let us protect it,” “Do not feel sad for those who died martyrs, feel sad for those living in humiliation”, “Neither minorities nor majorities, we are all Syrians,” and “I am a student, and I have the right to speak out against the bombardment of universities.”

As part of the campaign, the students of the Agriculture Faculty at the University of Damascus chose to raise the independence flag in their university, while the students of Kamal Ebeid School participated by tarnishing the picture of late President Hafez al-Assad, which was hung inside the school.

The campaign came two years and three months after the start of the uprising. It proved that peaceful resistance continues, and that students have not lost hope in the ability of their civil action to make changes in the course of the uprising. Through their slogans, they reject sectarianism and stress the unity of the Syrian people and the unified path of their fight against dictatorship.

Follow the campaign’s Facebook page.