Rami Jarrah is a Syrian political activist who played a major role in exposing the Syrian regime’s war crimes during the 2011 Syrian Revolution. During a time when international journalists were not allowed in Syria, Rami operated under the alias of ‘Alexander Page’, where he would document the war crimes committed by the Syrian government and share them on social media and to news outlets around the world. His bravery and fearlessness played a major role in exposing the truth on the ground, leading to him being awarded an International Press Freedom Award in 2012 from the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.
CJLPA: Welcome, Mr Rami Jarrah. I’d like to begin by thanking you for taking the time to come and interview with The Cambridge Journal of Law, Politics, and Art to discuss your story as a political activist and a human rights defender. I want to start with your life prior to your birth, by looking at the life of your parents. Your father, Nouri al-Jarrah, was a longtime Syrian dissident to the Baath party. On the other hand, your mother Lena Tibi was a member of the Syrian National Council, working as a representative of the opposition movement against the Syrian government. Your parents were eventually exiled out of Syria and they lived in Lebanon, maybe around the late 1970s. Can you please tell me about the events that led to them being exiled from Syria?
Rami Jarrah: For my mum, it’s much more straightforward. She actually grew up in Lebanon. She was a poet and my dad was also a poet. The sort of activities they were involved in were not exactly liked by the Syrian regime or the political elite. My dad, who grew up in Syria, was a part of the Communist Party, which during that time was headed by Khalid Bakdash. What happened at the time was that Hafez al-Assad declared unification, which was basically bringing all the political parties together, and one of the parties that joined the unification was the Communist Party. People like my dad and I think many figures of the Syrian opposition considered that move to be a political game that Khalid Bakdhash himself signed up for. So they defected from the party. I don’t think it was really a very public defection, but it was really just: ‘okay, this party doesn’t represent us’. My dad left the party, I think you’re correct in saying towards the end of the 70s, or maybe just the beginning of the 80s, and he went to Lebanon.