What happened
The detention and torture of schoolboys who wrote anti-regime graffiti in Daraa sparks protests that security forces answer with live fire; demonstrations spread nationwide within weeks. Demands escalate from reform to the fall of the regime as the crackdown intensifies through the summer.
The founding causality of everything after: a protest movement militarised by the state's violence against it. Daraa's place as the uprising's birthplace still carries weight in southern politics today.
Confidence: High
WhenMarch 2011
WhereDaraa
KindPolitical · Humanitarian
ArenaDamascus and state transition
Confidence: High Sources: Established historical record · UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria↗ Methodology Corrections
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