Yassin al-Haj Saleh | |
|---|---|
 Yassin al-Haj Saleh | |
| Born | 1961 (age 63–64) |
| Alma mater | University of Aleppo |
| Occupation(s) | writer, political dissident |
| Spouse | Samira Khalil |
| Website | www.yassinhs.com |
Yassin al-Haj Saleh (Arabic:ياسين الحاج صالح; born 1961)[1] is aSyrian writer and leftist political dissident. He writes on political, social and cultural subjects relating to Syria and the Arab world.[1][2]
From 1980 until 1996, he spent time in prison in Syria for his membership in the left-wing opposition groupSyrian Communist Party (Political Bureau),[3] which he calls a "communist pro-democracy group".[4] However, he has also stated that his time in prison allowed him to break out of the "internal prisons [of] narrow political affiliation [and] rigid ideology" and has called theSyrian revolution an "open-ended and multi-leveled struggle", while remaining supportive of aspects ofMarxism.[3] He was arrested while he was studying medicine inAleppo and spent sixteen years in prison, the last inTadmur Prison. He took his final examination as a general medical practitioner in 2000, but never practiced.[1]
In addition to being known for his own published books and articles, he also helped launch the bilingual publicationAlJumhuriya.net (est. 2012), lauded by journalistKim Ghattas as "an onlineArabic news platform that is one of the best sources of information and analysis in the region."[5]
He was one of the speakers in a two-day anti-capitalist forum, which was held in Ankara, Turkey, on Nov 23-24, 2013. Additionally, he was speaking at the event 'Reporting Change - Stories from the Arab region' in Amsterdam on 15 June 2014, an event jointly organized byHuman Rights Watch andWorld Press Photo.[6]
Al-Haj Saleh is married toSamira Khalil, a communist dissident, former political detainee and a revolutionary activist who was abducted in Douma in December 2013.[7] After 21 months of hiding inDamascus and wholeSyria, for being wanted by both the government and radical Islamist militants, he fled toTurkey and lived inIstanbul until 2017. Al-Haj Saleh is now a fellow atBerlin Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin).[8]
He has been granted aPrince Claus Award for 2012 as "actually a tribute to the Syrian people and theSyrian revolution. He was unable to collect the award as he was then hiding among the Syrian underground.[9] He was awarded Swedish Tucholsky Prize in 2017.[10]
One of the most influential Arab writers and dissidents as well as a prominent intellectual voice of theSyrian revolution, Yassin Al-Haj Saleh writes on political, social and cultural subjects relating to Syria and the Arab world for several Arab newspapers and journals outside of Syria, and regularly contributes to the London-basedAl-Hayat newspaper, the Egyptian leftist magazine Al-Bosla, and the Syrian online periodical The Republic.[11]
Among his books (the majority in Arabic):
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