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SECRET DATES, DEAD-DROPS and “bullet-free” maths lessons: these are just some of the ways residents of the Islamic State group’s Syrian bastion Raqa resisted years of jihadist rule.
IS has been ruling Raqa with an iron fist since 2014, imposing its draconian interpretation of Islamic law on the northern city’s 300,000-strong population.
But as a US-backed offensive broke into an eastern district of Raqa on Tuesday, residents told AFP how they spent years quietly resisting jihadist orders.
Sami, 24, met 22-year-old Rima six years ago, when Syria’s uprising broke out with anti-government protests across the country.
“We used to meet up, talk in the street, sit together in public spaces,” Sami told AFP, using a pseudonym to protect himself as he was speaking from Raqa.
But when IS took over, everything changed.
The group deployed its hisba (religious police) units across Raqa to enforce dress codes and a ban on interactions between unmarried people of opposite sexes.
Sami and Rima were forced to take their relationship underground. Sami said:
We started being afraid of IS’s patrols, so we tried everything. We wrote notes to each other that would be delivered by young kids.
With satellites and private internet connections banned, Sami used IS-run internet cafes to send Rima electronic messages, which she could only read hours later when she visited a similar cafe.
The system was a romantic take on the system of dead-drops typically used for covert communication among spies.
‘I wanted to die’
Sometimes, the couple even took the risk of arranging public rendezvous to steal furtive glances of each other.
“She would tell me, for example, that she was leaving the house at a certain time. We’d agree to meet at a shop,” Sami recalled.
Rima would enter the store in the full black face veil mandated by IS, but Sami always recognised her.
“I would come in and we’d talk a little bit before a Daesh guy would come in and ruin everything,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for IS.
One morning, their luck ran out. As Sami watched helplessly from a distance, hisba officers detained Rima in the street because “her clothes were not up to par”.
I was so angry and I began crying, but she was signaling to me not to approach them. I wanted to die at the time.
Rima’s parents said they would give their blessing for her to marry Sami only if they fled Raqa together, but financial difficulties have kept him in the northern city.
Thousands of people have poured out of Raqa as US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces edged closer to the city limits.
‘Ticking time bombs’
When IS overran Raqa, it also seized control of one of its most valuable resources: its schools.
As it has done in other cities, IS replaced the traditional curriculum, including classes on physics and chemistry, with religious courses and its own macabre twist on arithmetics.
“Studying maths became about counting rifles, pistols, explosives, and car bombs,” said a former public school teacher in the city on condition of anonymity.
One subject taught children how to carry out suicide attacks and boasted about the “virgins” with which the attacker could be rewarded.
“These courses turn students into ticking time bombs,” said the teacher, who refused to work in the IS-run institutions.
Parents, too, stopped sending their kids to school, fearing they would be brainwashed.
Instead, they reached out to former teachers, asking if they could hold secret tutoring sessions at home on biology, English and bullet-free arithmetics.
Teachers would arrive at a student’s home at an agreed-upon time for private or small group sessions, but instructors would avoid full-sized classes to stay under the radar. ” The former teacher told AFP:
The teachers who are doing this live in constant fear. But we feel like we have a duty to society and to a child’s right to a violence-free education.
One father has reached out to a close friend and teacher, asking if he could tutor his sons, seven and nine.
“It’s scary for us to think that our kids could start thinking like Daesh – talking about takfir (radical Islam) or slaves or virgins,” the parent told AFP.
This is destroying an entire generation.
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They are then told go to SVP for help. Is it any wonder our young people want to leave this country.
@Dave Barrett: They will end up working hard for a loss all their lives.
My son is raising two kids by himself and needed help with oil as he didn’t have the €250 minimum spend with oil companies. He couldn’t light the fire because there is a problem with the fireplace and the smoke is going into the to front rooms. He is in receipt of a disability allowance and is in private rental accommodation. He filled out the form for extra assistance from the social welfare for the oil that’s what the supplementary emergency payment is there for he received a letter back stating that he was receiving enough to cover his oil and to go MABS to learn to budget his allowance there are only so many times you can go to MABS to budget €208 so he was refused the help and had to ask the SVP for the help.
@Charliegrl80: And that’s where SVP come in. It’s a terrible state when people are refused help from the place where our government has told people to go to if they are struggling. Hope people remember this when next they vote. To be told go to MABS when your on low income really shows the intelligence of those working in welfare.
@Dave Barrett: Dave do you honestly believe in your heart that any other political party is going to make a real change there’s only so much the DSP can do and refusing to give additional money to someone is based on the DSP weighing things up it’s got nothing to do with FFG or Sinn Fein or any other political party and no party has a grove of money trees despite what they may say.
Seriously! We need to change the politics of this country. What’s wrong with SF. Don’t they deserve a chance. Now you have that idiot ER going to ban oil and gas boilers.
@Charliegrl80: why is he lighting a fire in summer?
@: What a “just don’t change the status quo, please” load of nonsense.
Bollox. Apologies. But utter bollox. I’m tired of listening to the excuse that there’s no “magic money tree”. I’m not a toddler. I can see things as they are. There’s no money tree for social cohesion… but there’s a money tree for HAP. For HAS. For the most expensive building in the world (Children’s Hospital). For a Dáil printer. For “strategic communications”. For tax breaks for landlords. For “emergency accommodation” paid to private investors. To installing water meters in EVERY residence in the country. There IS a money tree. It’s called taxation. We’ve a near 7 billion surplus of same. We’re a very small country. No one, NO ONE, should be tired, cold or hungry amongst us. & let’s believe em, there’s no money? Then borrow. Get people off the streets. Lead for christ sake.
@Greachán Ó Ceallaigh: Absolutely!! Well said!
@Charliegrl80: sounds terrible. But just for info and not that anyone should have to. You can fill any Jerry can and pay by the litre just like petrol at many providers/ petrol stations if you enquire. I have done it myself, until price dropped.
@l: assuming good that you have a car to get it from filling station, plus the cost per litre at pumps tends to be a lot more expensive than larger deliveries even though they don’t have delivery costs.
@Greachán Ó Ceallaigh: well said.
@Greachán Ó Ceallaigh: yeah cos the IRA did such a great job with the billions in the North.
@Dave Connolly: but but quick look over there IRA IRA ummm ahhh some more IRA. Ok now let’s all get back to sticking our heads in the sand bucket. Baaaa baaaa baaa.
@Dave Connolly: comparing an illegal paramilitary civilian guerilla army to an globally recognised elected Government is another pissant tactic. The IRA isn’t in power. The IRA hasn’t been in consistent power for over 8 decades. In fact, the IRA haven’t even been active for over 20 years. But sure… let’s focus on that particular illegal paramilitary gang instead of the legitimate elected Government of the Republic. Christ. Give your head a shake will ya?
@Dave Connolly: sad,
@Mick Murp: Are you mad? Greachán here just completely wiped the floor with actual facts that are completely contrary to what Dave just said. Are we America now, where we just pick a political side and stick to it religiously, regardless of reality??
@Mick Murp: Sorry Mick!! I somehow misread your comment as “well said”. Best get the eyes checked! Apologies
@Greachán Ó Ceallaigh: collect rents and debts owed (amounts reported during the week were mind boggling) sort out the housing we do actually have, utilise them in a correct way – number of occupants v number of rooms. We need to increase places available from what is already there and by building a shed load more
@Greachán Ó Ceallaigh: your right never IRA was never in power and you don’t want them. As bad as any government have been. They have not got the blood of innocent children on their hands.
@Dave Connolly: That ‘IRA’ is the only thing you can think of to defend the government – in 2022 – is hilarious.
@JusticeForJoe: not defending anyone. Just pointing out the difference.
@Dave Connolly: Ok buddy. I’m guessing you’re delighted SF are the most popular party in the country.
@Charliegrl80: surely with 2 kids,he must be in receipt of additional social welfare payments?child benefits….no? Also in disability allowance,he should be entitled to the ‘household package’ which includes free TV licence/travel and one monthly payment of 30/35 for electric/fuel/gas.he should check it.
@Greachán Ó Ceallaigh: you can’t seriously expect the government to spend the 6 billions of extra revenues? especially when the Irish National Debt is €239 billions,do you?
@Charliegrl80: is this case not the exact reason we tax our taxes to help this man. Shame on our government.
@Bri Lyons: F__k me if that’s all you have to say please please tell me you haven’t got a responsible job
Not true sf are pro people not pro profit like fffg
@Frédéric Slimane: You can’t save a whole lot when on disability for a rainy day.
@Dave Connolly: tell that ti the 800 infant skeltons in Tuam.
@Bri Lyons: Because he needs oil to heat the water so they can wash, oil is used for many different thing other than heating radiators. And at this time of year people are filling their oil tanks and buying coal for the winter months and especially now before the price gets even higher.
@Dave Barrett: you’re right!
The Ukrainians didn’t have to wait that long
@Noel Donohue: yeah let’s all point to refugees rather than the real culprits gouging prices with blessing of FFG.
@Noel Donohue:
Nice little scapegoat you’ve found yourself there Noel. We’ve got landlords in the dail squeezing the public for every penny they have, yet you attack the refugees who’ve had their homes destroyed and their families & friends killed.
@Noel Donohue: other people who are struggling are not your enemies…. I can’t believe we have to explain this.
@Noel Donohue: why are the poor vilified and the rich company’s who pay no tax here let off the hook robbing billions from us every year.
@Noel Donohue: all the states administration resources is going on looking after the refugees
Leaving no clerical staff to look after the native Irish needs like social welfare
Again its the poorest people who suffer the most.
@Kevin Carroll: this is a lie. If you’re mistaken… well and good… but if you’re not…. you’re a liar.
Which is it?
@Kevin Carroll: so what was the excuse before the refugees came here?
The country paid for around a third of European Banking debt in 2008 at an eventual cost of €64,000,000,000 and that decision was made literally overnight.
Yet giving our own people 0.05% as much money to save them from hypothermia takes eight weeks.
Jane Fonda’s health made the 9am news. This didn’t.
@Great White Hope: RTE is NOT a news channel. It is the propaganda arm of FFG.
Time to cop on because it’s going to get worser.
@Paul Gorry: they aren’t allowed hire more staff
We’ll help you in a crisis but you’ll have to wait 8 weeks. Unbelievable
@Declan Moran: I could be mistaken but the 8 weeks are for additional emergency payments and not basics payments.
@Frédéric Slimane: you can wait up to 6 months for carers allowance and more than likely they refuse you on the first application and on appeal you qualify it just doesn’t make any sense so 8 weeks wouldn’t be unusual.
If people are expecting our Government to help think again, the didn’t care about the housing crisis and over 10,000 homeless the health services are a mess,there,building data centres with out thinking about the consequences on the power usage, car insurance they done nothing,and there is plenty more. one or the other of these parties have been in governent sice the foundation of the state.
Somehow hire a large % of people who can’t stand dealing with the welfare of the public.
@Cat Reid: it was a bad day when the community welfare officer was taken from community centres. Now when you go to welfare office you take a ticket and wait. Your now a number, more often dealt with an emotionless, non sympathetic, non empathetic person behind a window.
@Dave Barrett: I went to a community welfare officer, he was bugger all help, didnt know anything, mum didn’t believe me so she came with me to a different one, this one knew nothing either. Neither were symphatetic or empathetic or have a brain cell. That was 20 years ago.
We really need an election.
@Fergal McDonagh: yeah. Best thing to do in a global energy crisis is get in a bunch of left wing terrorists to tax the hell out of the already over taxed middle class.
@Dave Connolly: did you you read sf manifesto obviously not
People in Ireland are used as instruments to make the already very wealthy even wealthier. Work hard, never own a property but pay for others to profit massively, pay loads in taxes for it to be funnelled in private contracts to vested interests, how dare you then look for crumbs from the top table, don’t you know you are supposed to keep providing those at that table in the wonderful lifestyle they have and will remain accustomed to. And if anyone does have anything spare then the energy companies will see to it that they get it. Hole of a place.
@Gerard McConnell: your comment although for a different time but it triggered a memory of being a small little girl of 5 years of age in an industrial school with the religious begging for crumbs from the top table they made the big money while we worked and slaved for them and were abused for even being alive.
We’ll march ’till we drop
The girls and the fellas.
We’ll fight ’till the death
Or else fold like umbrellas.
So we’ll march day and night
By the big cooling tower.
They have the plant
But we have the power.
@Rafa Condron: love this
@Rafa Condron: Where’s my burrito, WHERES MY BURRITO!
I live in a small town in West Clare…almost every business have signs outside saying “Help Wanted” or “Jobs, Apply Within”.
A number of local businesses have had to shut their doors because they can’t get staff
Some restaurants are only opening 3 or 4 days a week because they can’t get staff .
Am I missing something here or have people decided to opt for benefits over work?
I’m all for people who lose their jobs getting unemployment payments until they sort out a new job but there seems to be a trend of people settling for unemployment payments
@Gerry Madden: low income workers can apply for supplementary emergency payment its not just people on unemployment payments. This is a one off emergency payment and used to be paid by the HSE from the welfare officer but they moved these welfare officers to the Intro centres and now I believe they have taken them out of these centres and centralised them. I think that’s a big mistake as the welfare officer in the local office knew who the genuine people that needed the help were.
Learn Ukrainian or Arabic and I bet you won’t have to wait 8 weeks for any sort of payment,
Having dealt with Welfare in Wexford, I always found the front desk people very pleasant, it’s when you went upstairs they became nasty, as though you were taking the money out of their own pockets.
@Ian James Burgess: Sounds about right. Came across a person once who told me she was reduced to tears by a male welfare officer when called in for an interview. Didn’t want to complain him for fear of getting cut off.
Her example of an engineers report for a broken white good appliance is probably over egging it. It’s likely social welfare ask for a quote from an appliance repair technician. Fair enough ask in my opinion. If the cost to repair is more than the cost to buy, they likely provide funds to buy and refund the technicians call-out charge.
@Paul Fagan: no matter what you need they emergency money for they will not fund the full cost. If an appliance is €300 they might help with €150 of the full price.
Why is it called EMERGENCY welfare payment???
Emergency payment that takes 8 week shame on us
Of course that is only the case if you are IRISH . If you are an Immigrant money will be dished out urgently as will Bus Passes and PPS NOs etc .
have your say