Assad’s police threatened to bury me and my reporting. Now I’m back, and I’m free

Eleven years ago, I left Damascus not knowing if I would ever return.

At that time, the city was engulfed in war. Intense violence, which followed President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests, engulfed the capital. At any time you could do it shot dead in the streets.

I reported for the BBC inside Syria about the first protests in 2011. I reported on “day of anger”then there were shootings, killings, disappearances, airplane explosions and barrel bombs – until I became numb and lost hope.

I was arrested several times. The regime limited me from leaving and threatened me, and in 2013 I had to leave.

For the past ten years, I have lived through a time full of hope and despair, watching my country being divided abroad. Death, destruction, imprisonment. Millions are fleeing and becoming refugees.

Like many Syrians, I felt that the world had forgotten about my country. There was no light at the end of the tunnel.

When people took to the streets at that time to call for a coup, I never thought it would actually happen, given President Assad’s powerful supporters in Russia and Iran.

But on Sunday, suddenly, everything changed.

Last week, I was in Beirut reporting on the fall of Aleppo and Hama to anti-Assad terrorists, but I didn’t think that would bring change. I thought that Syria would be divided in two, Damascus and the coastal cities would remain in Assad’s hands.

After midnight on Saturday, things suddenly changed. At 04:00, it was announced that the regime had fallen and Assad was gone. As I write these words now, I still cannot believe that this is true.

I have been trying over the weekend to get a permit to enter the country for one of the most feared secret police organizations in Syria, called the Palestinian Branch. They had an arrest warrant in my name, because of my reporting on the protests.

I have not forgotten being arrested in the first week of the uprising in 2011. I once saw with my own eyes men lined up to be beaten, with blood on the floor and cries of torture. The guard grabbed my mouth and said “he will cut it.” [me]”If I ever said.

On Sunday, I hurried with my colleagues down to the Syrian border. Now there was no one in the Palestine Branch – no guards or detectives to threaten me the last time I tried to enter Syria in January. He told me he could bury me seven stories underground and no one would know. I wondered where he was now. How did he feel about the thousands he was investigating and threatening? Or those tortured to death in Assad’s prisons?

I crossed the border to Syria without fear of arrest. As I went on the air with the BBC from Damascus, I reported without fear for my safety.

There is a sense of joy in the air in Damascus, despite the anxiety about it Muslim rebels are in control and whether they will ensure security in the country. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) fighters protected public institutions from looting mobs stormed the presidential palaceand the prisoners have been released.

The HTS group met with the Christian residents of Bab Touma, a suburb of Damascus, to give assurances that they do not want to limit their freedom.

Some in the Alawite community – long supporters of Assad – are worried about what will happen to them, but so far there have been no reports of sectarian violence.

Since Sunday, friends and family members who fled have been sending me text messages saying they are coming back. It seems like everyone wants to go home.

My apartment in the center of Damascus was vandalized in 2013 when I left, after the authorities considered me a traitor and banned me from living there. Soldiers and local officials broke into and destroyed its walls and ceiling.

Last month I was able to regain ownership of it after bribing thousands of dollars. It will take time to rebuild it, but that’s what I’m going to do.

And maybe when it’s ready, Syria will be ready for us all to come back.