Campaign tactics – Campaigning with heroes

Syrian embassy projections

In August 2020, to mark International Day of the Disappeared, we were determined to draw attention to the thousands of people still disappeared and missing in Syria. We wanted to bring the voices of their families, and their demands for […]

Kesh Malek Murals

In March 2019, the Syrian civil society organisation Kesh Malek painted a mural in Idlib of the journalist Marie Colvin who had been killed in Syria in 2012. The caption was a quote from Colvin made during the siege of […]

Russian Embassy Projections

30 August marks the International Day of the Disappeared, an annual memorial for those who have been detained and disappeared worldwide. In Syria, where 100,000 people remain missing, the day is particularly pertinent, and in 2018 we used it to […]

Ghouta Celebrity Letter

In late February 2018, the UN passed a resolution calling for a 30-day ceasefire over eastern Ghouta. The area had been under bombardment by Syrian and Russian forces, which had subjected it to a chemical weapons attack, in addition to […]

“Tell Putin”

On 4 July 2019, Pope Francis was due to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The meeting came at an appalling time for Syria. Putin, along with Assad, had launched a devastating attack on Idlib, putting millions of civilian lives […]

Italy: Stand with Syrians, not with Assad

In March 2019, Italy’s then-Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi said his government was considering reopening Italy’s embassy in Damascus, something that would have normalised relations with the regime. It also would have made Italy the first European country to consider […]

Act for Ghouta

In October 2017, a group of Syrian activists launched a campaign to raise awareness of the Assad regime’s devastating siege of eastern Ghouta. One of the group members, Marcelle Shehwaro, had been engaged in similar efforts to raise awareness of […]

The Ice Bucket Challenge

The Ice Bucket Challenge began in 2013 as the “cold water challenge” and was used to raise money for different causes. It began to be associated with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig’s disease after a baseball player with […]

Siege Soup

This campaign was pulled together the day before Syrian peace talks in Geneva on 29 January 2016. We wanted to remind politicians and policymakers that, as they debated how to end the violence in Syria, people were living and dying […]

Who is killing civilians in Syria?

This remains one of The Syria Campaign’s most simple but high impact campaigns. At a time when ISIS was considered globally to be the biggest threat to civilians, we teamed up with the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) to […]

Siege Letter

Sieges have been used as a tactic throughout the Syrian conflict, resulting in mass starvation and loss of life. In January 2016, we wrote an open letter to the UN accusing it of complicity in the regime’s deployment of sieges. […]

The Women of Ghouta

In 2018, much of our work was focused on the ongoing and horrific siege of eastern Ghouta. Our supporters were engaged and devastated by the news, but it was up to us to think of new ways to ensure a […]

Remembering Dr Maaz

This Facebook post, which was published on 28 April 2016, is The Syria Campaign’s best performing post ever, with a reach of around 10 million people. Written as a first-hand account by Dr Hatem, the director of the Children’s Hospital […]

‘In Reverse’ video

Believing that organisations are more effective and impactful when working in coordination, Crisis Action brought together a group of international organisations under the #WithSyria banner. The Syria Campaign was asked by #WithSyria to take the lead on the production of […]

Airdrops to Daraya

Sometimes, the best way to make your demands heard is to talk to the recipients directly. On 13 May 2016, The Syria Campaign tweeted Abeer Etefa, a spokesperson for the UN’s World Food Programme. We also included the Twitter accounts […]

Partnering with the White Helmets

It seems strange to think of now, but there was a time when the White Helmets were barely known outside of Syria. In 2014, we were desperate to mobilise global public opinion against the aerial war being perpetrated by the […]

Limbs at the Russian Embassy

This was a direct action that took weeks of secretive planning. Our goal was to organise an attention-grabbing visual protest to draw attention to the escalation of the siege of Aleppo where dozens of airstrikes were hitting hospitals and crowded […]

“We failed”

Campaigns don’t always result in wins, particularly when they’re targeted at international governments with their own agendas and alliances. Sometimes it’s important to acknowledge the campaigns that didn’t succeed, in order to highlight an area of continued concern, show transparency […]

Case studies