Martyrs of May 6th 1916
DAMASCUS, (ST)-Today is the 100th anniversary of the martyrdom of 21 Syrian and Lebanese nationalists and intellectuals executed savagely without trial in Damascus and Beirut on May 6, 1916 by the Ottoman Wali of Greater Syria, Jamal Pasha, also known as “Al Jazzar” or “The Butcher”.
They were executed in both the Marjeh Square in Damascus and the Burj Square in Beirut for resisting the Ottoman occupation. Both places have since been renamed as Martyrs’ Square and the date, May 6, is commemorated annually in Syria and Lebanon as Martyrs’ Day.
The Ottoman occupation of the Arab homeland lasted four centuries and Greater Syria was known as comprising Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine, before the ill-famed Sykes-Picot agreement came to divide it in a heinous western conspiracy aiming to dominate the region.
The Martyrs’ Day anniversary comes as Syria is currently facing new Ottoman-backed wahhabi terrorism that targets the unity and sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic. Tens of thousands of terrorists and mercenaries have been recruited, trained, armed and sent to Syria from all over the world to fight the Syrian state with limitless support from western countries, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. However, the hero Syrian Arab Army’s battle against those terrorists and mercenaries continues nationwide with strong determination by the Syrian soldiers to sacrifice themselves as to save their homeland and clear Syria from terrorism.
The Public Execution of Arab Nationalists: May 6, 1916
Jamal Pasha, (the Butcher) committed his savage crime after he got information that a number of Syrian and Lebanese intellectuals and nationalists were calling for Greater Syria’s independence from the Ottoman occupation and for stopping the occupations’ Turkifying of public institutions and schools.
Nationalists executed in Damascus
According to SANA report on Monday, the Syrian nationalists, who were executed in Marjeh Square in Damascus on May 6, 1916, are:
-Shafiq al-Muayyad al-Azm, a Syrian poet and a writer, born in Damascus 1857. He was active in disseminating nationalist ideas seeking independence.
-Abdelhamid al-Zahrawi, born in Homs 1855, was a Journalist and founder of Homs-based newspaper “al-Minbar”. In 1913, he called for and headed the first Arab Congress in Paris.
-Rushdi al-Shamaa, born in Damascus 1856, studied law and literature and called for combating the occupation’s turkification policy and for defending Arab culture. He was also a poet and a writer.
-Omar al-Jazairi, born in 1871 in Damascus. He is the son of leader of the Algerian revolution Emir Abdul Qader al-Jazairi,
-Shukri al-Assali, born in Damascus 1868, was known of his resistance of the Turkification policy and was a big opponent of selling Arab lands in Palestine to Jews.
-Rafik Salloum, born in Homs in 1891, was a poet and journalist and member of the Arab Nationalist Association “Al-Fatat”. His poems were effective in urging the Arabs to seek liberation and to revenge against the Ottomans’ crimes.
Abdelwahab al-Inglizi. Born in Damascus Countryside in 1878, was a lawyer.
Nationalists executed in Beirut
Meanwhile, the nationalists who were executed in Beirut on May 6, 1916 at the Burj Square are: Said Akl, not the modern day poet, Petro Paoli, Jurji Haddad, Omar Hamad, Abdul Ghani al-Arisi, Aref al-Shihabi, Ahmad Tabbara, Tawfeek al-Bisat, Seifuddin al-Khatieb, Ali al-Nashashibi, Brigadier Salim al-Jazaeri, Brigadier Amin al-Hafez, Mahmoud al-Boukhari and Mohammad al-Shanti al-Yafi. All of them were elite intellectuals.
Historian Mohammad al-Horani told SANA that those freedom fighters, who were executed by the Ottoman occupation 100 years ago, have paved the way for the rest of the people under the Ottoman occupation as to continue resisting the occupiers and get rid of their atrocities and slavery policy.
Prepared by: Hamda Mustafa