Protesters with 'Peaceful' signs and Syrian flags, Douma (near Damascus, 8 April 2011)
A dense street crowd under a bright sky holds a forest of Syrian flags and hand-lettered cardboard signs. Bilingual signs read 'PEACEFUL' and 'NO FOR DISTROYING' with Arabic equivalents, and another sign in Arabic says the Syrian media lies. The tells are the national flag carried as the crowd's emblem, claiming the nation for the protest, and signs written for an observer, in English as well as Arabic, to address the government's claim that the protesters were armed.
Propaganda techniques used in this photograph
- Date
- April 8, 2011
- Period
- Contemporary
- Made by
- Protesters in Douma, Damascus countryside (organiser not named); photograph by 'shamsnn' on Flickr
Full record
Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Themes, Event, Source, Rights
- Region
- Middle East and North Africa
- Country
- Syria
- Medium
- Photograph
- Issuer type
- Movement
- Regime
- Ba Athist Syria
- Leader
- Bashar al Assad
- Audience
- Mixed
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Themes
- Media and information, Security and surveillance
- Event
- Syrian Civil War
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons (from Flickr), retrieved October 12, 2026
- Rights
- CC BY 2.0 (Flickr, per Commons file page)
shamsnn, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Text on the object
Original (Multiple) · read from the image, not independently checked
PEACEFUL سلمية NO FOR DISTROYING لا للتخريب PEACEFUL سلمية الإعلام السوري كذاب [other signs:] [illegible]
Peaceful Peaceful No For distroying [sic, destroying] No to destruction Peaceful Peaceful Syrian media is a liar [other signs:] [illegible]
English and Arabic, as printed, including the misspelling 'DISTROYING'. The Arabic on the left sign is partly cut off at the left edge; it is read as 'Syrian media (is) a liar'. Other signs are too small to read.
