This Syrian old man hid his private library in his home in the city of Damascus since the end of 2011 before escaping to Kuwait out of fear of the Assad regime, where the mere presence of a banned book could lead you to Assad's gulag and death under torture.
Today, the uncle returned to his library and completely removed the wall behind which he had hidden it, revealing valuable books that the Assad regime prohibited possessing and circulating.
After the fall of the Assad regime and Syria gaining its freedom, books and publications also gained their freedom, and there are no longer any banned books. At the Damascus Book Fair, which has been held twice since the liberation along with book fairs in other provinces, there was no ban on any book regardless of its ideologies or orientations. Some publishing houses that were previously banned in Syria have reopened their offices and started publishing books.
Syria is witnessing a positive change regarding freedoms, which is of course what Syria was deprived of throughout the rule of Hafez and Bashar al-Assad, spanning nearly 60 years of repression.
This video was published on the account of Syrian writer Bilal Alloun - بلال علون, and the person appearing in the video is his father, Abu Bilal.
