For many Syrians, the 2011 uprising began with graffiti on the walls of the southern city of Deraa, demanding an end to the regime of president Bashar Al Assad.
For this act of protest, 15 boys were kidnapped and tortured by government forces, led in part by the city’s head of political security, Atef Najib, a cousin of Mr Al Assad.
Peaceful protests outside Al Omari Mosque calling for the children’s release were met with more violence, spilling into a brutal crackdown and civil war against those who opposed the Assad regime.
The mosque was the site of more celebratory public gatherings on Tuesday after Najib was sentenced to death by Syrian courts alongside Mr Al Assad and his brother Maher.
Mohammed Ayyash, a resident of Deraa and the brother of Hossam Ayyash, the first demonstrator to be killed in the city, said the day was one of indescribable joy.
"The happiness we feel today is equal to the joy we felt when the Syrian revolution prevailed,” Mr Ayyash told The National.
Many of those celebrating on the street had attended the sentencing in Damascus.
“It is a victory for the revolution” said Malek Al Abboud, who spent the civil war years in Deraa, and in other opposition-held areas when the city was recaptured by regime forces in 2017.
He said Najib “was the reason the revolution started. He's responsible for the killing of children and he’s the reason for all the destruction”.
The city now is strewn with symbols of the uprising, including a public square commemorating the day large-scale protests began on March 18, 2011. A mural of a boy holding up a can of spray paint, and a girl next to him with the victory symbol, was painted on a bakery's wall.
Mr Al Abboud’s home is now rubble, with remains of hand-painted bathroom tiles visible in the debris. He lives with his parents in a rented home near by with no electricity, and although they hope to rebuild, they do not know how they will raise the funds to do so.
The court verdict is also a test for the new Syrian government’s ability to bring justice and accountability that Syrians are hoping for. Most senior officials have fled Syria, including Bashar and Maher Al Assad, who were tried in their absence.
Some, including those in Deraa who declined to be interviewed, believed Najib to be low-hanging fruit, while the war’s more serious perpetrators remain beyond the court’s reach.
Before the collapse of the Assad regime, those opposed to it relied on European and US courts to try to convict high-ranking members of Syria’s security services who were directly responsible for torturing and killing detainees.
But Ramez Abu Nabut, who attended the sentencing in Damascus on Tuesday, remained optimistic that this was a step in the long road to justice.
“I want to tell all Syrians who have suffered under the crimes of the former regime: do not give up on your right to justice. Go to the courts and seek it, so that those responsible for the crimes cannot escape punishment.”
Mr Abboud's mother Fida said she is still hoping for the return and capture of the Assad brothers, who are living in exile in Russia. “Our joy for the sentencing of Atef Najib is still small. Our bigger joy will be Bashar.”
She returned from Jordan with her husband six months after the fall of the Assad government in December 2024. “The city is full of sadness. We left Syria and when we came back it was a different place.”
But she is optimistic that things can only get better and urges her friends who are still in Jordan to return. “I encourage everyone to return to Syria.”
