Yazan Badran
@yazanbadran.bsky.social
Assistant professor, media, journalism, politics, Syria/MENA/SWANA at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. ECHO/SCOM/FWO
I call Latakia, Nagoya and Brussels home.
https://researchportal.vub.be/en/persons/yazan-badran
I call Latakia, Nagoya and Brussels home.
https://researchportal.vub.be/en/persons/yazan-badran
Sharaa received the investigative report for the 6 March “events” at the Syrian coast. If the report is not serious enough and no real accountability is forthcoming, this can backfire enormously right now. On the other hand, can he afford to hold accountable his fighting men in such moment?
July 20, 2025 at 1:33 PM
Sharaa received the investigative report for the 6 March “events” at the Syrian coast. If the report is not serious enough and no real accountability is forthcoming, this can backfire enormously right now. On the other hand, can he afford to hold accountable his fighting men in such moment?
There are many Syrians who genuinely believe that the legitimacy of the current authorities and power of the state is best achieved through massive brutalising displays of violence against "recalcitrant" communities, a la Coast, Suwayda. In other words: Assad's Hama doctrine.
July 19, 2025 at 10:39 PM
There are many Syrians who genuinely believe that the legitimacy of the current authorities and power of the state is best achieved through massive brutalising displays of violence against "recalcitrant" communities, a la Coast, Suwayda. In other words: Assad's Hama doctrine.
The president, however, commended them for their service. Madness.
The destruction that the tribal fighters are leaving in their wake in Sweida is truly horrific. A landscape of burning, pillaging and unrestrained hatred is all you can see and hear in these videos. To excuse, justify, obscure or naturalise this is tantamount to national suicide.
July 19, 2025 at 10:35 PM
The president, however, commended them for their service. Madness.
The destruction that the tribal fighters are leaving in their wake in Sweida is truly horrific. A landscape of burning, pillaging and unrestrained hatred is all you can see and hear in these videos. To excuse, justify, obscure or naturalise this is tantamount to national suicide.
July 19, 2025 at 10:34 PM
The destruction that the tribal fighters are leaving in their wake in Sweida is truly horrific. A landscape of burning, pillaging and unrestrained hatred is all you can see and hear in these videos. To excuse, justify, obscure or naturalise this is tantamount to national suicide.
Reposted by Yazan Badran
Talk about timely!
"The Future of Media in Turkey" report has been published as part of the Our Media project, in which IPS Communication Foundation/bianet is a partner.
April 2, 2025 at 12:43 PM
Talk about timely!
Testimonies of Survivors of the Coast Massacre (3) - A Psychologist's Testimony After the Massacre, collected by
Rosa Yassin Hasan for SyriaUntold and Daraj.
syriauntold.com/2025/04/02/h...
Rosa Yassin Hasan for SyriaUntold and Daraj.
syriauntold.com/2025/04/02/h...
How Will I Recover from Their Eyes? | SyriaUntold | حكاية ما انحكت
Beginning on Thursday, 6 March 2025, and lasting for six days, Alawite-majority areas along the Syrian coast were subjected to a coordinated attack that bore the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing. The ass...
syriauntold.com
April 2, 2025 at 12:04 PM
Testimonies of Survivors of the Coast Massacre (3) - A Psychologist's Testimony After the Massacre, collected by
Rosa Yassin Hasan for SyriaUntold and Daraj.
syriauntold.com/2025/04/02/h...
Rosa Yassin Hasan for SyriaUntold and Daraj.
syriauntold.com/2025/04/02/h...
Reposted by Yazan Badran
@apnews.com's Sally Abou AlJoud on another killing of Alawite civilians in Syria's Tartous: apnews.com/article/syri... (via @yazanbadran.bsky.social)
On displacement of Alawite Syrians from the coast to Lebanon – among thousands of Syrians on the move since December – see: tcf.org/content/repo...
On displacement of Alawite Syrians from the coast to Lebanon – among thousands of Syrians on the move since December – see: tcf.org/content/repo...
12-year-old boy among 4 killed in Syria's Tartous province
Provincial officials say a 12-year-old boy was among four civilians killed in Syria’s Tartous province.
apnews.com
April 1, 2025 at 4:03 PM
@apnews.com's Sally Abou AlJoud on another killing of Alawite civilians in Syria's Tartous: apnews.com/article/syri... (via @yazanbadran.bsky.social)
On displacement of Alawite Syrians from the coast to Lebanon – among thousands of Syrians on the move since December – see: tcf.org/content/repo...
On displacement of Alawite Syrians from the coast to Lebanon – among thousands of Syrians on the move since December – see: tcf.org/content/repo...
Part 1 of a series of witness testimonies by survivors of the Syrian coast massacres, compiled by Syrian author Rosa Yassin Hasan.
"... If this is just a search operation, then why all the gunfire? Why the explosions? Who is shooting? Who is shooting?"
syriauntold.com/2025/03/20/t...
"... If this is just a search operation, then why all the gunfire? Why the explosions? Who is shooting? Who is shooting?"
syriauntold.com/2025/03/20/t...
“To whom will I say good morning from now on!” | SyriaUntold | حكاية ما انحكت
Beginning on Thursday, 6 March 2025, and lasting for six days, Alawite-majority areas along the Syrian coast were subjected to a coordinated attack that bore the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing. The ass...
syriauntold.com
March 20, 2025 at 4:54 PM
Part 1 of a series of witness testimonies by survivors of the Syrian coast massacres, compiled by Syrian author Rosa Yassin Hasan.
"... If this is just a search operation, then why all the gunfire? Why the explosions? Who is shooting? Who is shooting?"
syriauntold.com/2025/03/20/t...
"... If this is just a search operation, then why all the gunfire? Why the explosions? Who is shooting? Who is shooting?"
syriauntold.com/2025/03/20/t...
Reposted by Yazan Badran
The longer Israel persists in its current approach to Syria, it risks pushing the country toward one of the very scenarios it says it wants to avoid: fostering chaos that Iran and/or jihadist militants could exploit. www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-...
How Israel’s Overreach in Syria May Backfire | Crisis Group
After the Assad regime was overthrown, Israel immediately began treating the new authorities in Damascus as a potential security threat, taking a series of aggressive military actions. This approach r...
www.crisisgroup.org
March 20, 2025 at 10:46 AM
The longer Israel persists in its current approach to Syria, it risks pushing the country toward one of the very scenarios it says it wants to avoid: fostering chaos that Iran and/or jihadist militants could exploit. www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-...
Reposted by Yazan Badran
Any researcher denied entry into the US for the 🙄 heinous 🙄 crime of lèse majesté against Emperor Trump should immediately be awarded a research grant from their home research council, no questions asked. Clearly they're doing something very right.
The new norm
Free speech, not so free any more in the US
Free speech, not so free any more in the US
March 20, 2025 at 9:50 AM
Any researcher denied entry into the US for the 🙄 heinous 🙄 crime of lèse majesté against Emperor Trump should immediately be awarded a research grant from their home research council, no questions asked. Clearly they're doing something very right.
The Syria Report on the pillaging of the Syrian coast last week: "villages and towns along the Syrian coast have witnessed a systematic campaign of looting, burning, and bulldozing of properties ... accompanied by mass killings and forced displacement"
hlp.syria-report.com/hlp/systemat...
hlp.syria-report.com/hlp/systemat...
Systematic Looting, Burning and Bulldozing of Property on the Syrian Coast
Over the past two weeks, villages and towns along the Syrian coast have witnessed a systematic campaign of looting, burning, and bulldozing of properties. This campaign was accompanied by mass killing...
hlp.syria-report.com
March 20, 2025 at 8:03 AM
The Syria Report on the pillaging of the Syrian coast last week: "villages and towns along the Syrian coast have witnessed a systematic campaign of looting, burning, and bulldozing of properties ... accompanied by mass killings and forced displacement"
hlp.syria-report.com/hlp/systemat...
hlp.syria-report.com/hlp/systemat...
Malik al-Abdeh's analysis of Sharaa's governance record is damning. And his pleas are nothing but the plainest of common sense: serious reforms, emphasis on effective governance, openness to different constituencies by giving them a stake in the new state.
www.syriaintransition.com/swallowingth...
www.syriaintransition.com/swallowingth...
Swallowing the State — Syria in Transition
www.syriaintransition.com
March 20, 2025 at 7:47 AM
Malik al-Abdeh's analysis of Sharaa's governance record is damning. And his pleas are nothing but the plainest of common sense: serious reforms, emphasis on effective governance, openness to different constituencies by giving them a stake in the new state.
www.syriaintransition.com/swallowingth...
www.syriaintransition.com/swallowingth...
"Abu Jaber, a religious notable in Khattab and a former opposition fighter who had returned to the village, described how he and others entered homes, and forced men on to the town’s roundabout, with the purpose of displacing them from the village."
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
‘They killed him in cold blood’: the cycle of revenge in north-west Syria
Over 1,000 people – including 745 civilians – were killed in attacks last week that mostly targeted Alawite minority
www.theguardian.com
March 15, 2025 at 9:54 AM
"Abu Jaber, a religious notable in Khattab and a former opposition fighter who had returned to the village, described how he and others entered homes, and forced men on to the town’s roundabout, with the purpose of displacing them from the village."
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
Zaina has been one of the most brilliant voices on Syria in the past decade. Her unfiltered reflections here show the profound challenges us Syrians will have to grapple with - and that's assuming we will have to stability required to even begin to tackle these challenges.
Returning to her hometown of Idlib in Syria, Zaina Erhaim found that the influence of Islamist rule and foreign jihadists continues to shape daily life.
She writes of her hopes and disappointment for New Lines Magazine.
newlinesmag.com/spotlight/is...
She writes of her hopes and disappointment for New Lines Magazine.
newlinesmag.com/spotlight/is...
Islamism Is Still Thriving in Idlib
Why one Syrian woman says her recent visit to her hometown, after more than a decade away, may be her last
newlinesmag.com
March 14, 2025 at 12:26 PM
Zaina has been one of the most brilliant voices on Syria in the past decade. Her unfiltered reflections here show the profound challenges us Syrians will have to grapple with - and that's assuming we will have to stability required to even begin to tackle these challenges.
We are no where near knowing the full scale of the slaughter:
"In a number of extremely disturbing instances, entire families - including women, children and individuals hors de combat - were killed, with predominantly Alawite cities and villages targeted in particular."
"In a number of extremely disturbing instances, entire families - including women, children and individuals hors de combat - were killed, with predominantly Alawite cities and villages targeted in particular."
Syria: Distressing scale of violence in coastal areas
Reports continue to emerge of the distressing scale of violence in Syria’s coastal region since 6 March.The UN Human Rights Office has so far documented the killing of 111 civilians, but the process o...
www.ohchr.org
March 11, 2025 at 4:00 PM
We are no where near knowing the full scale of the slaughter:
"In a number of extremely disturbing instances, entire families - including women, children and individuals hors de combat - were killed, with predominantly Alawite cities and villages targeted in particular."
"In a number of extremely disturbing instances, entire families - including women, children and individuals hors de combat - were killed, with predominantly Alawite cities and villages targeted in particular."
The Alawi militant insurgency (ongoing) at the Syrian coast is plainly made up of remnants of the Assad regime. They represent in no way a form of "popular resistance"; are despised by large sections of Alawites there who see them as co-responsible for the massacres (also ongoing) that befell them.
March 10, 2025 at 3:54 PM
The Alawi militant insurgency (ongoing) at the Syrian coast is plainly made up of remnants of the Assad regime. They represent in no way a form of "popular resistance"; are despised by large sections of Alawites there who see them as co-responsible for the massacres (also ongoing) that befell them.
Accounts from friends in Baniyas (who were spared because they were Christian) confirm that at least one of the groups responsible for summary killings in Al-Qusoor neighbourhood was made up of non-Syrian foreign fighters. They executed everybody else in their building (all Alawis).
March 8, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Accounts from friends in Baniyas (who were spared because they were Christian) confirm that at least one of the groups responsible for summary killings in Al-Qusoor neighbourhood was made up of non-Syrian foreign fighters. They executed everybody else in their building (all Alawis).
The scenes and voices coming out from friends and family on the Syrian coast are nightmarish. The bloodshed continues unabated and any pretence of state authority by those in Damascus has well and truly collapsed. And we will all pay a hefty price to come.
Syrian security forces execute 125 civilians in battle against Assad loyalists
Battle in Latakia is marked escalation by Bashar al-Assad loyalists against Syria’s new Islamist-led government
www.theguardian.com
March 8, 2025 at 11:01 AM
The scenes and voices coming out from friends and family on the Syrian coast are nightmarish. The bloodshed continues unabated and any pretence of state authority by those in Damascus has well and truly collapsed. And we will all pay a hefty price to come.
Reposted by Yazan Badran
Very happy to see this nice collaboration with Juan get a prize from @polstudies.bsky.social !
Congrats to the winner of the Harrison Prize for the best article published in a 2024 issue of @polstudies.bsky.social: "Populism of the Privileged: On the Use of Underdog Identities by Comparatively Privileged Groups" by @benjamindecleen.bsky.social & Juan Alberto Ruiz Casado
buff.ly/f98Hvph
buff.ly/f98Hvph
March 4, 2025 at 12:18 PM
Very happy to see this nice collaboration with Juan get a prize from @polstudies.bsky.social !
Reposted by Yazan Badran
I wrote (and re-wrote) this essay for over the past two months in an attempt to think through the contradictory impulses triggered by Israel's assassination of Nasrallah in the midst of a genocide in Gaza, from a Syrian perspective.
Nasrallah, Syria and Palestine: Thinking beyond the narratives that speak us - Untold
how can we arrive at a condition in which a struggle for a democratic, inclusive and open Syrian polity and society comes to presuppose and to prescribe a struggle against Israel’s genocidal ethno-nat...
untoldmag.org
January 6, 2025 at 8:42 AM
I wrote (and re-wrote) this essay for over the past two months in an attempt to think through the contradictory impulses triggered by Israel's assassination of Nasrallah in the midst of a genocide in Gaza, from a Syrian perspective.
I wrote (and re-wrote) this essay for over the past two months in an attempt to think through the contradictory impulses triggered by Israel's assassination of Nasrallah in the midst of a genocide in Gaza, from a Syrian perspective.
Nasrallah, Syria and Palestine: Thinking beyond the narratives that speak us - Untold
how can we arrive at a condition in which a struggle for a democratic, inclusive and open Syrian polity and society comes to presuppose and to prescribe a struggle against Israel’s genocidal ethno-nat...
untoldmag.org
January 6, 2025 at 8:42 AM
I wrote (and re-wrote) this essay for over the past two months in an attempt to think through the contradictory impulses triggered by Israel's assassination of Nasrallah in the midst of a genocide in Gaza, from a Syrian perspective.
The axis of popular solidarity.
People in Gaza show their support for the Syrian revolution ...
December 21, 2024 at 10:08 PM
The axis of popular solidarity.
Reposted by Yazan Badran
People in Gaza show their support for the Syrian revolution ...
December 21, 2024 at 9:42 PM
People in Gaza show their support for the Syrian revolution ...
Reposted by Yazan Badran
The brutally imposed ossification of Syrian political life has finally been broken. A thread about old-new cleavages that will structure the political field we enter now (neither comprehensive nor sufficient - just a discussion starter)👇
December 20, 2024 at 1:23 PM
The brutally imposed ossification of Syrian political life has finally been broken. A thread about old-new cleavages that will structure the political field we enter now (neither comprehensive nor sufficient - just a discussion starter)👇
The brutally imposed ossification of Syrian political life has finally been broken. A thread about old-new cleavages that will structure the political field we enter now (neither comprehensive nor sufficient - just a discussion starter)👇
December 20, 2024 at 1:23 PM
The brutally imposed ossification of Syrian political life has finally been broken. A thread about old-new cleavages that will structure the political field we enter now (neither comprehensive nor sufficient - just a discussion starter)👇