{"id":131485,"date":"2025-10-27T16:18:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T16:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/npasyria.com\/en\/?p=131485"},"modified":"2025-10-27T16:18:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T16:18:24","slug":"hijri-affirms-right-to-self-determination-for-suwayda-residents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/npasyria.com\/en\/131485\/","title":{"rendered":"Hijri affirms right to self-determination for Suwayda residents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>SUWAYDA, Syria (North Press) <\/strong>\u2013 Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, the spiritual leader of the Druze community in Syria\u2019s southern Suwayda Governorate, said on Monday that the right to self-determination for Suwayda\u2019s people is \u201ca firm right that cannot be withdrawn.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Al-Hijri\u2019s remarks came in an interview with Sky News Arabia, amid ongoing tensions between residents of Suwayda and the transitional government in Damascus that have persisted since the protests erupted in July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He called on the international community to recognize what he described as atrocities committed against the people of Suwayda, stressing the need to \u201cuncover the truth about what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to al-Hijri, more than 600 people remain missing, including women, while the government in Damascus continues to obstruct negotiations regarding their fate. He also accused the authorities of \u201cfailing to evacuate devastated villages and continuing to distort facts,\u201d as he put it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The spiritual leader reiterated that the vision of Suwayda\u2019s residents centers on full independence for the governorate, underscoring their determination to pursue autonomy despite stalled mediation efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>By Atoun Jan<\/strong><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SUWAYDA, Syria (North Press) \u2013 Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, the spiritual leader of the Druze community in Syria\u2019s southern Suwayda Governorate, said on Monday that the right to self-determination for Suwayda\u2019s people is \u201ca firm right that cannot be withdrawn.\u201d Al-Hijri\u2019s remarks came in an interview with Sky News Arabia, amid ongoing tensions between residents of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":131486,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[39,3,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-politics","category-syria"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Hijri affirms right to self-determination for Suwayda residents<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"SUWAYDA, Syria (North Press) \u2013 Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, the spiritual leader of the Druze community in Syria\u2019s southern Suwayda Governorate, said on Monday\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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