No Eid in Raqqa

Abdalaziz Alhamza “RBSS”

The third year and the sixth Eid pass and people of Raqqa cannot celebrate. No joy in its streets and houses in each there are martyrs, detainees or wounded ones.
No children in playing gardens, no family visits and no women can go out to celebrate Eid because they fear Hesba patrols. The vast majority of its people have displaced their houses and the worst people of the world have taken their houses.
No joy to martyrs’ families, no joy for those who still live under ISIS control, who urge the entire world’s air forces to target Raqqa and never let its remaining people flee out of it.
No joy for those who are waiting death every single day, no joy for a mother who cannot talk to her son because he was judged to be (apostate).
Al Na’em Square in which Raqqa children used to celebrate Eid is now a slaughtering square. Al Rashid Park was destroyed by the Russian air forces in the pretext of fighting ISIS.
In the slaughtered Raqqa, there is no Eid without visiting their relative s’ graves, even this was banned from the terrorist group. ISIS fighters destroyed all the graves based on their own Islam, the Islam that is quite different from our Islam.
There is no glorifying after Fajr prayer; we used to get out of Al Fardous mosque, in which the first demonstration against Assad regime went out. Al Hani mosque is not different; its minaret was targeted by an air force.
Each year before Eid, Tel Abyad Street was closed because of the crowds, and now half of it is destroyed and the markets in the other half does not sell anything now because people cannot afford buying clothes for their children.
ISIS fighters urge people including elders and children to endure the raids because warplanes are targeting all Muslims, but they do not do so because they live in safe underground shelters and if one of their leaders got killed, innocent people are accused of that.
A Tunisian fighter urges people to respect the Shariah clothes and tell them about his happiness of applying Shariah in Raqqa, at the same time he chats with his drunken sister in the Tunisian island, Djerba, telling her that he is a prince and he lives in palace which he has taken of one of the revolution apostasies.
They are telling people about Zina and their patrols are making woman look like black bags, but at the same time they are using Whatsapp groups for selling female captives. They urge people to do the Islamic worships and at the same time they ban Haj in the pretext of Saudi is an apostate state.
One day, Eid will come back to Raqqa, and its people will come back to it and enter the city as their prophet Muhammad entered his homeland, Makah. They will enter Raqqa believing in their God who will save them from the brutality of ISIS.

media activist from the city of Raqqa, student at the Faculty of Law at the University of the Euphrates. Director of the Media Office of Raqqa, founding member of "Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently", founding member of the documentary project of "Sound and Picture". I work in documenting violations committed by Assad's regime and ISIS group and extremist organizations inside the city of Raqqa, as I work in programming, design and visual media. I hold a certificate of coach in digital security, and a certificate of journalist coach, and a certificate in documenting violations against human rights, and a certificate in electronic advocacy. I underwent a training under the supervision of "Cyber-Arabs" in collaboration with the Institute for War and Peace "IWPR", about the management of electronic websites and leadership of advocacy campaigns, and a training of press photography under the supervision of the photojournalist "Peter Hove Olesen".